Destiny Calls
by ultimatebrat
Summary: This is not a love story. Yes, there is romance, and yes there is love, and yes there is even kissing, but I can assure you that this is no love story. This is the story about a girl fighting for her chance to escape, fighting for the ones she cares about, fighting for her destiny. Believe me. This is not a love story.
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own anything that has to do with Kingdom Hearts, the characters from KH, the locations from KH, etc. If I did, I wouldn't be working at Chick-fil-A for $7.25 an hour

_My very first memory is of sand._

_Cool sand. Wet sand. Sand stuck to my cheek and sprinkled in my hair. Sand I would find in my socks for days afterward. Sand I spit out of my mouth in disgust._

_My second memory is of drawing myself up from the ground and glaring at a young boy, lanky and thin. Of seeing his smug grin and laughing eyes. His wooden sword held limply in his right hand and a chuckle freeing itself from his lips._

_I rubbed grainy bits of earth out of my eyes with as much dignity as a defeated 5 year old could muster. Regained a grip on my two curved wooden weapons. Narrowed my eyes._

_"Riku, you cheater!" I shouted, an accusing finger pointed in his direction._

_The boy laughed lightheartedly, a hand on his hip. "Not my fault you can't spar," he teased._

_"You're supposed to wait 5 seconds before we start! Those are the rules! You broke the rules!"_

_"No I didn't!" he defended, his voice rising. "You're just a sore loser," he teased again, sticking his tongue out._

_A grumpy pout formed on my childish face and I stuck my tongue out at him, crossing my arms. "Sora's more fun that you. He actually plays by the rules. Like you're supposed to."_

_"Sora's an even bigger baby than you are," Riku grinned._

_"OW," was the next thing he muttered, rubbing the side of his head and sending a glare my way. Somehow one of my wooden hook blades had slipped itself out of my hands, hurled itself through the air and struck him in the temple._

_"Oops," I said smirking, not at all sheepish._

_A grin formed on his face and he held out his arms. "I'm gonna get you for that!" he yelled playfully, dropping his sword onto the sand with a light thud._

_I let out an excited squeal and began to run away, giggling, happy that another game had ensued. We spent the rest of the day like that, running around on the island, chasing each other and playing hide-and-seek. For a couple of 5 year olds, this was life at its best._

_Little did we know that things wouldn't be like this for much longer._

_It must have been two months after that when it happened_

_Riku, Sora and I had been running around the island, excited for our newfound freedom. Only recently had our parents allowed us to take our boats out unsupervised, and we were taking advantage of the opportunity. Riku had been allowed to leave our island home for a few weeks before Sora and I, and boy had we been jealous. "It's not fair, I'm more mah-toor than you are," Sora would pout, his brown spikes seeming to droop with his attitude_

_"I've never heard of a mature 4 year old before," Riku would tease back, grinning. "I'm 5, you're not a big kid until you're 5, and my mom said you have to be a big kid to go to the island."_

_Sora boasted for days after his own mother granted him permission only a week later, much to Riku's distaste and my amusement._

_We spent a lot of time on the paopu tree's trunk, carving our initials into its sturdy branches and swinging on it like monkeys. Sora always had trouble getting up onto the tree on his own. He would swing one leg over onto the smooth trunk and immediately plop back onto the sand, frustrated, but never giving up until his hands and legs were bloody and scrapped from reaching for branches. Riku sometimes stayed on the ground with Sora so he wouldn't feel inadequate, but usually Riku preferred to taunt the brunet boy from above, sticking his tongue out and calling him a baby. This often led to Sora's annoyance, which then tended to lead to a sparring match between the two. Seven out of ten times, Riku would crush him. He was bigger, stronger, faster, and simply better with his sword._

_ I would sit on the trunk of the paopu, twisting my pale pink hair in between my fingers and laugh at the silly taunts they would throw at each other as they fought. Sometimes I would even join in on the sparring, twisting my wooden makeshift hook blades in my hands and ambushing them from above and behind, practically running them in circles. What I didn't have in brute force I made up for in stealth, wit and speed. As a child I was often ashamed of not being as strong as the boys; now that I'm older (and much stronger), I've come to appreciate my abilities, cherish them even._

_It happened on one of those days: Sora and Riku sparred out of spite and competition. I joined for fun, defeating them with some difficulty, but defeating them nonetheless. I smirked. Sora pouted. Riku called me a baby, despite the fact I'd just run him into the ground. Everything had been normal as ever._

_We were strolling on the beach, teasing each other. Riku yanked on a strand of hair that had come loose from my braid. I whacked him in the arm with my hook blade, narrowing my gray eyes at him. Sora giggled lightheartedly, his wooden sword hiked up on his shoulder._

_We turned a corner. Stopped in our tracks. Cocked our heads in confusion. My mouth dropped open, eyes widening in amazement._

_In front of us was a woman that none of us had ever seen. She was much older than us, thin and tall. Her straight blue hair fell at her shoulders and her large eyes showed wisdom and kindness. In her right hand she held a large oversized key, silver and blue in color. It seemed to have a faint sort of glow. A faint sort of…light._

_At the sight of it, I was instantly drawn in. I dropped my hook blades and reached my hand out to it, taking it in both hands._

_"Wow, look how cool it is!" I exclaimed, gripping the blade in my fingers._

_Warmth rushed through me, a sort of happiness. It made me smile, it made me feel safe. It made me feel older somehow, wiser. The cold feel of the blade made me feel as though I belonged with it and I was comforted by the thought. I felt as though one day I'd see one of these keys again, hoped I would._

_All of this happened in only a second; the blade was gently pried away from my childish, stubby fingers by the blue haired woman, a kind expression on her face._

_"It's not polite to touch other people's things, sweetie," she said. Her voice was sweet and soothing, maybe a little deep. It was honey to my ears._

_"Wow," I breathed, tearing my eyes away from the key and looking up at the woman, an ashamed expression on my face. "I'm sorry I touched your key. I didn't mean to be rude."_

_She smiled warmly and knelt down to my eye level. Pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. Looked to Riku. To Sora. Back to me._

_"You remind me of my friends and me," she said, resting her hands on her knees. "There's light here, in each of you. Protect each other. Friends do that for each other, you know."_

_We did nothing. We simply stared at her, transfixed._

_"Don't let your friends fall into darkness," she continued. "There's a bond that cannot be broken between friends like you, friends of the light. Your paths have crossed; you're destined to be together no matter what happens in the future. Take care of each other. Let the light take you where it will and I know it will lead you back to each other."_

_"Yes," Riku said, his eyes set. He didn't seem as confused as Sora and I, almost as if he knew exactly what she meant. He was cool, collected. He understood better than us, I suppose._

_She looked to him, an expression of understanding passing her face for a fleeting second. She opened her mouth to speak, halted, and then continued. "You understand because you have light in you," she hesitated slightly, pointing her long index finger to his heart. "My friend must have done that for you. You're very lucky to have met him."_

_Riku did nothing but stare back at her, an unreadable expression on his face._

_The woman halted again before returning her gaze to me. "I'm Aqua," she smiled, her eyes brightening._

_"I-I'm Akira," I stuttered, still awed by the blue haired woman's presence._

_Aqua held her hand out to me, nodding her head as if prompting me to take it. Cautiously, I took a hold of it. A shimmering light emitted from our grip, faint but visible. Warmth rushed through my veins and I closed my wide eyes for a second in appreciation of the feeling._

_Aqua released her grip from mine and my eyes opened to see her smiling face. "You need to protect your friend from the darkness," she said, her wise eyes flitting to Riku then back to me, pinned on my childish face. "I gave you something special. Use it wisely. Control it. I have faith in you."_

_I was puzzled, that's for sure. My hand still tingled with sensational warmth and I looked down at it, perplexed by what had just happened._

_When I looked up again, Aqua was nowhere to be seen._

_Later that night I couldn't eat my dinner. My childish mind was still reeling, trying to figure out who Aqua was, where she had come from, what she had given to me._

_What _had _she given me?_

_I excused myself from the table, retreating to my room. I sat on my bed and concentrated on my hands, especially the one that had been in her grip. The only thing I focused on were my palms, my thin pink eyebrows furrowed against my pale skin._

_Then. A flame licked itself up from my palm, reaching about four inches tall. I squealed quietly in shock, quickly clamping my other hand over my palm, my eyes widening and curiosity peaking._

_As a 5 year old, I didn't know what I was, what I possessed, what that little flame had meant. Now, many years later, after discovering and perfecting each and every spell, I know exactly what Aqua had given me as a child._

_The power of magic._


	2. Starts With an 'S'

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own anything that has to do with Kingdom Hearts. If I did, Riku and Sora would've been an official couple long, long ago.

"Fire," I whispered, absentmindedly twirling small flames around my index finger. The orange and yellow embers danced on my palm, growing bigger and bigger as they waltzed around each other. Two of them merged together, dancing a new kind of dance, growing larger, larger, larger, turning white hot and expanding to my wrist, still growing and growing and growing—

"Akira!"

My door burst open and I quickly sat on my hand, crossing my legs and pulling them tight into my chest, praying that whoever was at the door hadn't seen.

"Relax, it's just me," the voice said, and Kairi stepped out of the shadows of the doorway, her arms crossed behind her back. She giggled. "You're not very good at hiding it y'know."

"Why are you here?" I interrupted rather grumpily, uncrossing my legs and placing my hands on the edge of my bed. "I wanna get back to my training and then I have to spar with Tidus in an hour. So for whatever reason you're here, make it quick, okay?"

Kairi's smile faltered and she crossed her arms, leaning against the doorframe. "What you_ need_ to be doing is helping me."

"With?"

Kairi shrugged and looked down at my clothes-strewn bedroom floor. "Remembering."

I sighed, pulled my feet from the ground and sprawled out on my bed. My sheets were soft and I rubbed them between my fingers. "Kairi," I began as I shut my eyes, "I don't know how you expect me to help you. I don't remember another boy. Just Riku."

"Just because you don't remember him doesn't mean he wasn't there," Kairi defended. "He was our best friend. My best friend. He was here, I can feel it."

"I think you're just missing Riku," I mumbled as I rolled over onto my stomach. "Trust me, I miss him too. A lot. But you said he'd be back eventually and I believe you. Can't that be enough for you without having to imagine an entirely new person to wait around for?"

"I didn't imagine anyone!" Her voice grew a bit shrill. "Why can't you just believe me on this?"

"It's hard to think that I-and everyone on Destiny Islands-forgot about an entire human being even existing. It's just not logical."

"Well neither is you being able use magic, but we don't question that," she shot back as she took a step into my room and stood at the foot of my bed. Frowning, hip cocked and arms crossed. It was rare for people to get under Kairi's skin, but I seemed to have a natural talent for it. "And," she continued, "Our world disappearing because of creepy dark creatures isn't logical. Neither is Riku being locked in a dark world for the past year or so. And neither is the possibility of other worlds, which has obviously been proven."

"You made your point," I grumbled, waving her off. "I'm just saying that it's really unlikely that everyone forgot about this guy. I mean, you don't even really remember him. How could you know he's actually real?"

She paused and I cracked my eyes open. She seemed to be looking for the right words to say. "Because," she began slowly, picking her words very carefully, "I felt him."

I rolled over and sat up, eyebrows raised. My legs crossed underneath me. "_Felt_ him?"

"Yeah."

"Like…" I glanced around, unsure of how to respond. "Physically?"

"No. No, not physically." She sat down at the foot of my bed, her red eyebrows knitting together. She absentmindedly pulled at the skirt from her school uniform and fiddled with her hands. "Like… I felt him in my… Heart?"

I let out an unintentional snicker. Kairi's face reddened.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You just have to realize how ridiculous that sounds," I tried to explain as an uninvited smirk creeped it's way to my lips.

She looked away and I felt a small twinge of guilt. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that; you just caught me off guard." I scooted closer to her, pushing strands of long pink hair that had fallen out of my braid behind my ear. "Just tell me more about how you felt him in your… Heart?"

Her blue eyes flickered my way and she raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," I repeated, nodding to try and show encouragement that I hardly felt.

She sighed before turning her body my way. She spoke in a whisper and I had to lean in to hear her correctly. "I fainted the other day." My eyes widened, but when I didn't interrupt she continued in that same soft voice. "I was with Selphie and I was telling her about the boy. How I knew there had been someone else and I just couldn't remember. But then after a while, I started to get dizzy and I fainted. And that's when I heard him. Felt him."

I blinked. "He made you faint?"

"I'm not sure," she said, her voice rising a little in volume, "but he spoke to me. And so did someone else. Another boy." She paused. "'Starts with an S!'"

"S?"

"His name. It starts with an S."

I racked my brain but could not think of any boy on the island who had a name that started with an S. There was Selphie of course, but she wasn't forgotten by everyone nor was she missing. "I don't know Kairi," I murmured.

"You don't believe me. That's okay," she murmured back, shaking her head. "It was dumb to tell you anyways."

"Kairi, wai—"

She stood and walked to the door, and with her back turned, stopped at the doorframe. She turned her head a little so I could just see the side of her face. "I'm going to the beach tomorrow after school. I have to do something important. You can come if you want. I don't care."

"Kairi, hold on."

She was already gone.

_I ate my dinner in silence. My dad was not yet home and I had the entire house to myself, just as I always did. Everything was normal; I sat alone at our tiny kitchen table, eating a meager meal of rice and steamed pineapple when I heard a clap of thunder. I shrugged and dismissed it, until a louder, more defined clap sounded through the air. It was so strong it vibrated my fork and sent a chill up my spine._

_I frowned. "The raft is going to get washed away," I thought faintly, already putting my plate in the sink._

_I exited my tiny house, wrapping my oversized military jacket tight against my body and pulling the hood over my head to protect myself from the wind and rain. The beach was not far from my house, and I was not at all surprised to see that my boat was the only one still tied off to the pier. Of course Riku and Kairi and the boy would already be there, ready to save the raft._

_The boy, what was his name? What did he look like? Who was he?_

_I climbed in my own boat and began to paddle with my oar. The waves were high and the current strong. The wind pushed me back but I fought against it, determined to get to the island._

_I rowed for some minutes, rain and wind whipping at my cheeks, giving my face a new feeling of rawness. I was nearly there now, nearly three quarters of my journey accomplished. For the first time I looked up from my hands on the oar and into the sky, looking towards the island._

_Bad idea._

_Up in the sky was a dark mass of...something. It pulsated and rumbled, changing the sky from dark purple to deep blue and then to black. It seemed to be growing larger and larger, and I couldn't find the will to take my eyes off of it._

_"What is that?" I yelled to myself over the wind, and out of the corner of my eye I caught the sight of a wave. A large wave. A wave large enough to swallow me whole._

_"Oh no!" I yelled again, but it was too late. The wave engulfed me and my teeny tiny boat. I tried with all my might to swim up to the surface, but the waves just kept pushing me down and down, and soon I didn't even know which way was the surface anymore. The current dragged me around and sucked the air out of me, and as I floated away, I faintly thought of how depressing it is that "Oh no!" would be my last words, and how it was even more depressing that I had been the only person there to witness my last words._

_And as consciousness faded, a bright light engulfed everything around me. The ocean was taken over by light. I was swallowed by it and it felt nice._

_About half a year later, I stood on a beach. The beach I had been headed to so many months ago. The place I'd been headed before my memory faded and my world was swallowed in darkness._

_Kairi was there. She was yelling to a boy who was drifting away from us. He yelled back, promising he'd return. Kairi was crying._

_ Our world was forming again, out of small blue lights that fell from space. I caught one in my hand and it shone. I smiled._

_Starts with an S._

I woke with a start, breathing heavy. Sweat trickled down my back and my cheeks felt hot, like I'd been crying. All of my sheets and covers had been kicked to the floor and the island breeze drifting in from my open bedroom window made me shiver.

I didn't care though. I remembered.

I ran a hand through my hair and smiled, hoping that this single name would never lose the sweet taste it had given me, hoping that it never got tired of being on my tongue.

I said it once, twice, three times. A hundred times I repeated it, and yet I never got tired of speaking what I had remembered, what I had forgotten.

And I said it again.

"Sora."

I got ready early the next morning. As I slipped on a fresh uniform, I hoped that I'd run into Kairi before the bell rang, before we would have to go to our separate classes. Due to being a year younger than I, Kairi didn't share any classes with me, so I knew I'd have to catch her before school started if I wanted to talk to her.

She had become infamous for being early, busy socializing with the other students and organizing her homework and folders for her morning classes. I had become infamous for tardiness, oftentimes stumbling into class with tired eyes and unfinished work. God forbid anyone try to talk to me; they wouldn't get anything more than a grunt or dismissive wave of the hand, and that was if they were lucky.

So when I walked into the teeny school 15 minutes before the bell, I got quite a few strange looks. A couple people did double takes; the beast herself was up and walking around at this time in the morning? And she wasn't even _complaining_ about it? Unbelievable.

I searched everywhere I could, asking anyone who would listen if they had seen her (I was met with raised eyebrows usually; "It speaks with words and not grunts? Wow."), but I was left at a dead end. The one time I had actually bothered to show up on time, the social butterfly was nowhere to be found.

Defeated and slightly annoyed, I went to my first class 5 minutes before the bell. My teacher raised her eyebrows and smacked her lips before walking past my desk. Teachers never liked me much. Maybe it was the sleeping during lessons, maybe it was the apathy towards any sort of work, maybe it was the blatant disregard for anything they told me to do. But who knows, it could really be anything.

I didn't concentrate on any of my lessons the entire day (well, even less than normal). Instead of sleeping, my mind raced. I remembered. I remembered Sora. I remembered his brown spikes and large blue eyes. I remembered how he had always been much shorter than me and how I often teased him for it. I remembered that he was the reason I had a thin faded scar on the right side of my forehead (he hit me in the head far too hard with his wooden sword when I was 7 and he was 6. I never quite let him live it down, and every time I brought it up he'd feel guilty, even though I was always just messing with him). I remembered his stupid little kiddy crush on Kairi and how it was obvious to everyone but her.

I doodled his name all in my notebook, and when I ran out of pages I wrote it on my hand. Large black letters, scrawled in my messy, tilted handwriting. I wrote it dark, hoping the name would burn in my brain and I wouldn't have to forget again.

Sora Sora Sora.

The day could not end soon enough. When the final bell sounded to signal the end of classes, I was the first person out of the school. I rushed to the beach as quick as possible, dropping my black messenger bag onto the ground and sitting on the sand, crossing my legs out in front of me. I loosened the tie around my neck, causing it to hang low beneath my chest.

By the time Kairi showed up at the beach, I had kicked off my black loafers, rolled up the sleeves of my shirt, unbuttoned the first three buttons for comfort and pulled off my navy blue knee-high socks.

"I didn't think you'd come," Kairi said, standing over me. She dropped her bag next to mine.

I glanced up at her and smiled. "Sora."

She smiled back. "Yeah, Sora. Sora." She crouched down next to me and tugged lightly on my long braid, smiling wider when I swatted her hand away. "Hard to believe we forgot him."

"You remembered him last night too?" I squinted my eyes to try and keep out the sun. Pieces of loose hair that had fallen out of my braid whipped in front of my face, manipulated by the island breeze. I briefly wondered why I let my hair grow all the way down to my lower mid back before pushing the bothersome strands out of my face.

"An hour or two after I left your house actually," she murmured, pushing her cherry colored hair behind her ear.

An empty silence hung in the air as we both remembered how I'd acted towards her. I fiddled mindlessly with the silver nose ring in my left nostril. A nervous tendency. "Look, I'm—I'm sorry that I… Look, just—"

"Don't worry about it," she waved me off and placed a hand on my shoulder in the motherly way she always had. "I don't blame you. I guess I sounded kind of crazy."

"I won't correct you," I said, remembering the dream I'd had last night. Or rather, flashback. Strange to think I'd forgotten everything.

She laughed lightheartedly and reached into her bag and pulled out a small bottle with a cork. I raised my eyebrows and she smiled, shaking it lightly in front of me. "'Thinking of you wherever you are,'" she recited.

"You really think he's gonna find that?"

She placed the bottle in the ocean and we watched it float away in silence. It floated slowly, sometimes getting knocked back to shore by the waves before being dragged back into the clear blue water.

We sat there for a long time, and I began to think; how could I have forgotten one of my very best friends? How could I have forgotten about the boy I'd acted as an older sister to? The boy I'd grown up with?

Rubbing grains of sand in between my fingers, I remembered Riku, Sora and I as kids. We were competitive, sure, but we still liked each other plenty. Even though I was snarky and Sora was a baby and Riku was a pill, we always had each other's backs. We were the three musketeers. Inseparable.

Kairi and I sat on the shore of the beach like that for a long time, looking out into the horizon long after the bottle had floated out of eyesight. We stayed there in silence for an eternity and a day, until the last remnants of sunset lingered to the sea. The waves were sparkling orange before I ever got an answer to my question.

"I know he will."


	3. Through a Portal

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't any part of Kingdom Hearts. If I did, Xehanort's final vessel would've been Winnie the Pooh.

Two weeks passed and it was time for summer vacation. Goodbye unfinished homework and closed-minded teachers, hello paopu tree and sleeping in.

I barely passed my classes, but I passed them nonetheless. The majority of my teachers had a written note attached to my report card, usually saying things like "_Akira is a bright and intelligent girl, she just needs to apply herself to school and have more respect for her elders and blah blah blah"_. I didn't care enough to keep a hold of it and I knew my dad wouldn't care enough to know what my teachers thought of me, so I simply discarded the notes as soon as I could find a wastebasket.

Kairi came home with me that night, still in her school uniform and possessing the excitement of a small pet whose owner had just come home. She flaunted her perfect report card to nearly anyone who cared enough to glance her way and all I could do was try not to roll my eyes and look apathetic. Spoiler, it didn't work.

"You think people care about you and your grades and accomplishments a lot more than they actually do," I told her bluntly as I unlocked my front door.

"I'm going to pretend that wasn't kinda mean," she said back as she dropped her duffel to the floor.

"Oops," I muttered sarcastically before taking a huge bite of mango. A long strand of hair from my braid caught itself in the silver piercing of my right eyebrow and I shook my head roughly to get it out, whipping my horribly tangled hair back behind me.

Kairi stared at me for a few seconds, looking absolutely disgusted as the sweet sticky juice dribbled onto my chin before shuddering. "It's just a _wonder_ no one wants to date you."

"I'm going to pretend that wasn't kinda mean," I mocked, imitating a voice much higher and irritating than hers, but still hers nonetheless. I wiped the juice from my chin with the back of my hand and Kairi cringed.

"You shouldn't be allowed in public," she muttered, turning her back to me as she plopped onto my ratty couch.

"What do you even wanna do tonight?" I said, pretending I hadn't heard her. I leaned against the counter with my elbows, still working mango between my teeth.

Kairi twirled her hair in between her fingers and sighed. "I don't know. Maybe we can see if Selphie is free?"

"Pssh," I swallowed the last of the mango on my tongue. "You know how busy she is. If you want to make plans with her you have to schedule it, like, a week in advance." I threw the pit of the mango in the trash and leaned against the wall. I breathed deep and crossed my arms. "We could always go to the island I guess. I know you haven't been there in a while."

"In a year, actually." She didn't make eye contact.

I rolled my eyes. "If this is some poetic thing about you not wanting to go back until our friends come home then you're an even bigger loser than I thought you were."

"Can't you at least pretend you miss them for like, two seconds?" she shot back, her eyes still staring straight ahead at nothing. Her fingers still twirled around her thin hair, weaving in and out.

"I do miss them."

Kairi stopped twirling her hair and turned to face me, her eyebrows knit together in frustration. "Then why don't you act like it, huh? You and Riku were best friends and I think I've heard you talk about him like, three times this entire year. Why can't you at least pretend you're worried?"

I stared at her. "Because I'm not." My voice was plain, very matter-of-fact.

She shook her head in disbelief, a gleam of desperation etched into her dark blue eyes. "How could you even say that? How could you not care?"

I uncrossed my arms and loosened my uniform tie, expression blank. "Because I know that they'll be fine. I don't need to worry. I don't need to care because they're big boys and they can take care of themselves."

"Akira, Sora was hopeless before the island got swallowed. As much as we both love him, you gotta admit that he was hopeless. How could you even say that with any sort of confidence? Ever?"

I slipped the tie completely off and kicked off my loafers. As I began to walk to my room to change, I called back behind me to answer her question. "I can say that because we literally have no need to worry whatsoever." I closed my bedroom door and unbuttoned my shirt, smiling at what she had not heard.

"Because Riku's with him."

We ended up staying in that night, much like every other night. Well, for me anyways. Kairi was a social butterfly, I was a hermit. She pushed me to meet people, and I wanted to push her off a cliff. It was a friendship of opposites and weirdness and frustration, but a friendship nonetheless.

Strangely, Kairi was okay with doing absolutely nothing. Her usual busy-bee attitude seemed to disappear. I figured it was because it was already too late to plan an activity and her only other option would be to go to the island, which I knew I'd never be able to convince her to do. So instead we made homemade noodles with pineapple and chewed on mangos and passion fruit and chocolate and nearly anything else we could get our hands on.

"I don't like hanging out with you because I always end up gaining weight and getting fat." Kairi was strewn out on my bed, an empty bowl of strawberries and chocolate on her stomach.

"Hey!" I said, pointing a finger. I was laying flat on the floor, snow-angel style. The carpet was stiff against my bare legs but I didn't care enough to move to a chair. That, and I was too full to even think about getting up anytime soon. "No body shaming allowed in this household, sweets."

She groaned. "I was just saying, geez." She was silent for a long time, then smacking her lips she sighed. "Don't get mad at me for talking about this again."

I groaned back at her and turned my head in her direction, a scowl etched on my face. "Is this really gonna happen again?"

"Well, yeah," she shot back as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Her _"duh"_ tone was on an entirely new plane.

I groaned for the second time and forced myself to sit up, wincing at the slight discomfort in my stomach caused by overeating. I leaned against my bed, facing away from her and folded my hands across my legs, my feet outstretched. "Okay, fine, Princess. What do you wanna talk about?" Annoyance dripped precariously from my voice.

Kairi didn't seem to care, just as usual. "It's just… I'm tired of waiting."

"For Sora?"

"No!" she yelped defensively, her voice rising. She waited a second and sighed. "I mean, yeah, I guess. I miss him. A lot."

I shrugged. "There's nothing wrong with missing them Kairi. It's not shameful or anything." I decided, for once, that I wouldn't rile her up any more by saying _him_. She would only get defensive about my implying her little crush. Kairi seemed to actually want to get serious, and I figured I might as well comply. "You're allowed to miss people."

"It's not just that," she began. I felt her shift on the bed and soon she was sitting next to me on the floor, her knees wrapped in her arms. "I'm just tired of waiting for everything, you know? I waited for someone to rescue me from the darkness, I waited for Sora to save the worlds, and I've been waiting for him to get back. It's just not fair. I'm sick of it." Her voice was soft and quiet, like a small child. She was vulnerable.

I glanced at her and she stared straight forward, her eyebrows furrowed in frustration. "Well," I began, watching her, "what do you wanna do about it?"

She shook her head and looked back at me, her eyes confused. "What?"

"Nothing's gonna change if you don't make it change," I said back, examining her expression. "I mean, if you're tired of waiting around then you have to take action. If you don't you're just gonna keep waiting, you know?"

She ran a hand through her hair and tugged a little at the ends. "How? How am I supposed to do anything at all? It's impossible."

I shrugged, remembering everything that had happened in our lives. How I possessed the power of magic, how our world got swallowed into darkness, how we all forgot an entire person.

I smiled. "You never know, Kai. Stranger things have happened."

Five days of summer passed, all of which I spent with Kairi.

Well, kind of.

She was acting different, strange even. Every day she stood on the banks of the beach, just close enough where the water hit her sneakers. With her hands behind her back, she simply stood motionless for hours on end, her dark blue eyes trained towards the little island where we had played when we were young. She wouldn't talk or shift or yawn or even avert her gaze. She would just stare, her expression a mix of determination and hope.

Truly, I had no idea how to react. The first day she did it I tried talking to her and getting her attention, but she wouldn't talk back. I even playfully insulted her and she still didn't budge. I didn't want to leave her alone in the state she was in though, so I stayed with her every day, simply sitting on the sand a little ways back, usually writing in my notebook or practicing my magic or sparing by myself or napping. I would stop what I was doing occasionally and glance at her, and of course she still stood there, silent.

On the sixth day she finally spoke.

"I feel like I won't have to wait much longer," she said, her voice optimistic. Her high voice was louder than usual and didn't sound strained despite the long amount of time she'd spent without speaking.

I perked up instantly, a bit startled by the voice I hadn't heard in days. I got to my feet, brushing sand away from my mid-thigh length military-green army jacket. "You think so?" I walked to where she stood, lining my own feet up with hers. Pink high-tops next to black, pink dress next to black overall-shorts. "What makes you say that?"

She looked away from the island for the first time in nearly a week and reached her hand out to me, touching the aviator goggles that hung permanently from my neck. I towered over her by nearly half a foot so it took some effort for her to reach up to grab the goggles. "Why do you wear those?"

I smiled at her and swatted her hand away. "It's cheesy and dumb and you'll probably make fun of me for it."

She smiled back. "Probably, but tell me anyways."

I sighed and fingered the thick black straps of the goggles absentmindedly. "Well, when I got my powers I got kind of obsessed with the thought of the impossible. I started to think and think, and then little seven year old me thought 'what if there are other worlds out there?' I got a thirst for adventure. These goggles symbolize that for me, I suppose."

She laughed softly. "I guess that's how Riku got so into outside worlds too?"

"He was already fascinated by them when we were little, but me becoming a fanatic only increased his obsession I think."

There was a silence, but we never broke eye contact. "How did you know there were other worlds though?"

For a second I truly thought about it before shrugging my shoulders. "I don't know. I just knew."

Kairi grinned, shifted her weight and looked back to the island. For a second I thought she had gone back into her trance, but that beautiful smile was still plastered on her face. I didn't have to worry. "Then there's the answer to your question."

I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms over my layered white-T-shirt-under-my-overall-shorts. "What?"

Deep sea blue eyes met stormy gray ones. "That's how I know I won't be waiting much longer. I just do."

As it turns out, Kairi was right.

More days passed just as they had been before; Kairi stood on the beach, watching something no one else could see. I stayed by her side, trying my hardest to entertain myself with sparing and magic. Sometimes she would speak to ask how my magic was coming along or to tell me that she felt like the waiting would stop soon, but that was it. It was just me, Kairi, and that childhood isle across the water.

On the 20th day, things changed.

Things were normal all day. The silence, the boredom, the occasional statement from Kairi, yada yada yada. The orange of the sun was already beginning to sink behind the ocean when it happened.

I was sitting cross-legged quite a bit away from Kairi, weaving small lightning bolts in between my fingers out of boredom. The green-yellow light chased itself around my hands, climbing up towards my arms as I became absorbed in the beauty of my power. A shriek from Kairi was what caused me to snap my head up in concern.

Surrounding us were strange white figures, slinking towards us slowly. They convulsed and slithered into themselves, stretching out wide only to form back into small little balls, all the while advancing closer. Their mouths formed a zipper which stretched over different parts of their bodies, sometimes opening up to reveal nothing but darkness.

Instantly I was on my feet and shielding Kairi, my wooden hook blades in my palms. The lightning that had been dancing on my arm had already been sent to one of the creatures closest to Kairi. It reeled backwards and folded into itself on the ground before disappearing in a burst of white and black.

"Kairi, get behind me! Now!" I screamed, knocking her behind me with my arm. "Get the dagger I've been training you with! Where is it?"

"I don't have—" I shot another bolt of lightning towards an advancing creature and breathed deeply as I tried not to panic. The number of opponents was overwhelming, and as good as I was with magic, I didn't have enough energy or endurance to take them all on alone. Logic told me that little wooden weapons wouldn't do much damage either and logic further told me that defending both Kairi and myself would be a difficult task since we were surrounded on all sides.

"Just stay behind me!" A stream of a blizzard shot from my fingertips to an opponent behind Kairi who had nearly gotten close enough to graze her.

I took out two more before a black portal appeared behind the white monstrosities. Out of it stepped a man in a long black coat with tall stature, reaching a head or two above me (which was impressive I suppose, for I was fairly tall myself). His long red hair was pushed back out of his face and down his back, his green eyes playful and mischievous.

"I see you came to play," he mused, clapping softly.

I got in a defensive stance and held one arm in front of Kairi, one in front of me. Lightning flickered precariously from my palm, threatening to escape my hold and shoot in his direction. "You see, the thing is that I don't play."

He chuckled lightly and held his hands up in defense. "Oh hey now, there's no need to get all hostile. I'm just trying to get to know you, pink hair. I'm Axel."

I grit my teeth. "I don't care to know who you are, creep. But if you touch her," I motioned to Kairi, "I will end you so fast. You'll regret ever being born." I vaguely registered how ridiculously movie-macho I sounded. Vaguely registered how much like _Riku_ I sounded. And I vaguely registered the uncertainty I felt as I said it. All three of us knew I would never be able to take on all these white creatures and Axel on my own, but he smirked at my threat despite the reality of the situation.

Kairi's breathing was heavy behind me and I felt her hand on my arm. She stepped forward a bit, causing herself to no longer be concealed. "What do you want?" Her voice was strong for the most part but shook tentatively on the first syllable.

Axel smiled, his white teeth flashing in the sunset. "Why, I'm here to take you to see your friend."

We were silent. I finally spoke, my voice disbelieving "What friend?"

He chuckled. "He's a friend of mine too, you know. Well, indirectly I guess, but still a friend. Very close. Really touches my heart." He laughed louder after his last sentence and I narrowed my eyes.

"Who is it?" I yelled louder, the lightning on my hand growing stronger and stronger. It crackled with the force of a storm and my fingers tingled.

His electric green eyes lit up, purple tear drop tattoos scrunching up in his smile. "Well, Sora of course."

"You're lying!" Kairi exclaimed softly, though she sounded unsure. "He's no friend of yours!"

"You've been waiting for him, I know," he mused, examining his nails. "The thing is Kairi, is that when you have a dream you can't just sit around and wait. You gotta act. One of life's little rules. Got it memorized?"

"Wha—How do you know my—"

A whistle sounded somewhere behind us. I whipped my head around, where another dark portal seemed to be forming. I nodded at Kairi as subtly as I could and she nodded back.

"We're practically old friends, you know," Axel drawled, a wide sideways grin spreading on his face. "We both miss someone very dear to us." He held a hand to his heart, his tone mocking. "But the thing is, I can't find my friend without your help, Kairi. So I just have to—"

I sent the lightning towards him in a flash, but he had been expecting the attack and blocked it with what looked like fiery chakrams, a fiercely wild grin on his face. He stumbled a bit and began to advance towards us but it didn't matter because we were already high-tailing it to the portal.

As we dove through the darkness, Kairi turned around at the portal's edge, her stance defiant, her dark blue eyes trained distastefully at Axel, the man with the red hair. "Well you're not acting very friendly."

And with that I took her hand and dragged her into the portal, into the darkness, into destiny, into who knows where.


	4. A Whole New World

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own anything to do with Kingdom Hearts. Except for a cute lil Wayfinder charm. Man, that is the shit I _do_ like.

_"Riku?"_

_The small boy stared out into the setting sun, leaning comfortably against the paopu tree's trunk, nearly-muscled arms crossed across a slender boyish chest. He was toned in the way that children who play tag and spar too much are; solid in a pre-pubescent way. _

_"Hm?" His eyes remained glued to the horizon._

_I swung my bare feet back and forth, the trunk of the tree gripped loosely in my hands. The orange of the sunset made my pale pink hair look light red and it hung free to the lower curve of my back. It was wavy and messy from being in the braid and tangled together from the island breeze._

_"Why do you think we're here?"_

_He glanced at me then, his eyebrows raised. "What do you mean, Akira?"_

_I shrugged and swatted a piece of hair from out of my face. "I don't know. Like… Why are we _here_, on this paopu, on this island?" Riku's expression remain unchanged, and I continued. "I mean… This sounds crazy I guess, but have you ever thought that maybe there's more to the world than this island?"_

_He was quiet for a long time before turning back to face the horizon, crossing his ankles where he stood. I watched him carefully as a teeny tiny smile curled on his lips. "Kairi make you think of this?"_

_"Well, yeah," I answered simply. "She had to come from somewhere, right? I mean, I know it was six years ago, but I've thought about it ever since she showed up here."_

_"The only explanation that makes sense is that she came here from another place or something. Another world."_

_I jumped. "So you believe me?"_

_Riku nodded and turned to face me fully this time, that small smile still curved on his lips. "Of course I do. Even if she had never shown up here I still would." He slinked a little closer, leaning his side against the trunk. "It's unlikely that we're the only world, you know? And it's even more unlikely that we just so happen to end up on _this_ world. So, why? Isn't it just as likely that we'd end up somewhere else?" _

_I thought for a second, excited and frightened by all the things that could have been. Amazed, really. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."_

_He turned back to the horizon, determination etched to his face. "There are only two options in this life, now. Both are equally as horrifying as the other." Riku had always been a sort of philosopher, even at the ripe age of 11. "Either you're doomed to stay in the same place for the rest of your life and attempt figure out _why_ you're there, or you leave."_

_I remember feeling breathless, like the wind had been knocked out of me. But not in pain, like in sparing when Sora or Riku would knock me down too hard. More like the breathlessness of wonder._

_Adrenaline rushed through my blood, my 11 year old mind racing with thoughts of the future, of possibilities and uncertainties. "How do you leave?" My voice was hopeful and longing. I couldn't help the chill that flooded my skin when I thought of other places, the horror and comfort of other worlds._

_Riku's maturing face broke out into a boyish grin and he looked dead in my eyes, looking almost as provoked by thought as I felt. Electric blue meeting smoky gray. _

_"I don't know," he said simply, and his face broke out into an even wider grin._

_"That's the thrill of it."_

Someone was shaking my shoulders roughly, so rough that it hurt. My eyes stayed closed and I struggled to open them, eventually finding the strength for my eyelashes to flutter. When my eyes opened, I noticed I was face down on concrete and there were three pairs of feet around me. Whoever was shaking my shoulders halted and I forced myself to sit up, using all the strength I could manage.

"Hey, are you okay?" The voice belonged to a male, and even though he sounded concerned, there was still gruffness to his tone, something authorative.

I held a palm to my head and my eyelashes fluttered open. In front of me stood four people who I had never seen before in a place I had never _been_ before. Everything was soaked in a beautiful orange light. Even the people in front of me.

"Hey, I'm talking to you. Are you okay?" The voice of annoyance belonged to a young man, probably only a year or two older than myself. He was tall and buff and wore a scowl and a long coat.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine," I said, rubbing my eyes with the palms of my hands.

"You had quite a fall there, Pink," he said, his arms crossed. He held out a hand and I took it, pulling myself to my feet. I was dizzy. My head swam and ached and my arms and legs were sore from running. And… falling?

"Fall?" I blinked hard to get the black spots out of my eyes.

"Yeah, you totally just fell from the sky, y'know?" Another guy was speaking now, shorter but more buff than the first guy. From the very first moment I heard him speak I knew that he couldn't possibly posses half the brain cells I did.

"The…sky…" I was whispering to myself. My mind raced. What is this place? Who are these people?

"You don't look so good, y'know?"

My head was spinning and a cold sweat broke across my forehead. I could vaguely feel myself shifting my weight and swaying. "No… No, I'm… I'm fine." My voice was barely over a whisper.

"Damage," A girl spoke this time, her voice deadpan. She sounded far away, but my eyes told me she was only a couple feet in front of me. Her hair was silver and her eyes were striking. My mind hurt too much to tell what color they were.

"Yo Seifer, do ya think we should take her back to the hangout?" The mega-buff guy placed a hand on my shoulder and I shook it off, which caused me to lose my balance almost completely. I stumbled and caught myself before I could sink to my knees.

"No! No! No… I'm fine," I wasn't even audible anymore because I had already fallen. The black spots in my eyes weren't going away and my legs felt wobbly and noodle-like and my brain told me that it might be a good idea to take a nap on the concrete again.

So I did.

The next time I opened my eyes I was face down again, but this time on soft blue plush. My eyes didn't swim and my mind still hurt, but not nearly as bad as before. I stayed still for a long time before I rolled onto my side. The soreness from my body was gone, leaving only a dull numbness in my muscles.

I cracked my eyes open carefully and blinked back the orange light room I was in was—of course—cloaked completely in an orangey-yellow light, like a sunset or something. But not like a crisp island sunset with pinks and purples; something a bit different.

Overall, the room looked like a college dorm; plastic cups all over the coffee table, plates of food on top of the TV, on the floor, on the armrests of loveseats. The walls were plain beige but tall posters hung from them, advertising movies and bands and rappers that I'd never heard of before.

"What is this place?" I mumbled, sitting up fully and resting my head in my hands. Thinking, thinking. What was the last thing I had been doing?

My eyes snapped open. "Oh, God. Oh my God, Kairi." I bolted upright, only to have dizziness fill my head and send my back on my butt, back on the soft blue couch.

"You gotta take it easy. Chill out for a minute, yeah?"

I rubbed my eyes to try and force the dizzy away and looked up. The tall scowly guy was leaning against the door frame to another room, his arms crossed.

"N-N-No, no, no. No, I won't. I have to find her," I rubbed my temples and began trying to get up again but he darted across the room and placed a hand on my shoulder, forcing me back onto the couch.

"Stop it or you'll pass out again." His voice sounded irritated, like he was speaking to a six year old who had misbehaved.

I narrowed my eyes. "Don't tell me what to do." My voice was venom.

He narrowed his eyes back. And stared.

We stayed like that for a long time, just staring at each other. I didn't know if it was possible to dislike someone you've said only about 3 sentences to, but I sure felt a certain type of contempt for this guy.

"Better?" The silver haired girl's voice is what broke up our stare-down. She had just entered the room, her slender form blending in with the dark orange shadows.

I clenched my jaw. "I'm fine. I'm fine."

"You know lamer, you've got a lot of damn nerve for someone who is in _my_ town, in _my_ hangout, who _I _didn't leave on the street when she was out cold." The tall guy was really beginning to rub me the wrong way, and I am the type of person that tells you exactly how I feel—no matter how harsh.

"I didn't ask for your damn help. Now you better tell me where the hell I am and who the hell you are or I will take you out so fast you won't even know what happened." I was trying hard not to yell or swing at him. I don't get angry easily. Really, I don't. It takes a lot to make me mad, but when I am, my temper is near uncontrollable.

"Did you not hear me? You're in _my_ town."

I stood up in a flash and lunged for him, the dizziness suddenly replaced by ferocity. I attacked him for two reasons. One, who knows if he had Kairi. What had he done to her? Did he put her in danger? And two, because he had really just pissed me off. A lot.

The silver haired girl was pulling me back by the arms, and the short buff guy had appeared in the room too, dragging the tall dude out of my clutches and through the doorway to another part of the hangout. His eyes were fiery with rage and he yelled profanities at me as his friend dragged him into the hall, and I kept hearing him shout until a door slammed shut, effectively silencing him.

"Get off of me," I rumbled through gritted teeth. The girl held me for a few seconds before releasing me. She eyed me carefully for a few seconds (now that I could see correctly, I could tell her eyes were a strange golden-red color. Striking.) before muttering "Stay" and exiting the room, headed to see her friends.

My cheeks burned and I knew my face was as pink as my hair. Quiet profanities spilled themselves from my lips as I paced the living room, tugging on the ends of my half-out-of-the-braid braid.

Horrible ideas raced through my mind. These people could've hurt Kairi. She would never be able to defend herself; I love her and all, but God, even with the sparring lessons I'd been giving her, she's hopeless.

I stayed in that room alone for a good, solid hour, thinking of all the things that could have happened to Kairi without me protecting her. I wished I could know if she was safe, but I couldn't. And it killed me.

Eventually the tall guy entered the room again, his buddies lingering close behind. His muscles were tensed and anger still looked hot on his face. "Can we start over?" he tried keeping his voice low and controlled, but it cracked once or twice to reveal that he was still annoyed with my entire presence as a human being.

I clasped my hands, raising my eyebrows. "Depends. You gonna tell me where my friend is?"

It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. "What? No. What friend?"

I stood and held my hand to the height of my shoulder. "'Bout yay high. Shoulder length red hair. Wearing a pink dress with a black hood. Overly optimistic. All the time."

The guy seemed a little less annoyed now that I wasn't being absolutely horrible, and he shook his head. "No, never seen anyone like that 'round here. Sorry, I guess." It was possibly the most unsure and uncaring sorry I'd ever heard. But I didn't care, because my friend was missing, and even this jerk had no idea who or where she was.

I sighed in annoyance and pulled at the ends of my hair again. Hard. "Perfect. Just perfect. This literally could not be _any_ better."

He clenched his jaw. "We'll keep a look out for your friend I guess." I said nothing in return. "I'm Seifer. You?"

I looked Seifer up and down and crossed my arms. He was a head taller than me, which was impressive, for I'm practically a giant. "Akira."

He stared at me, the muscles of his arms defined against his chest. "Well Akira, I'm gonna assume that you attacked me all crazy because you were worried about your friend. I'm gonna forget about it and let it slide." He narrowed his eyes a bit. "Only this once, lamer."

I sat back down on the couch and rolled my eyes. "I'm so grateful." My voice dripped with sarcasm, but a smile slipped its way onto my lips. Despite his stone cold features, Seifer's eyes lit up in amusement. He didn't say anything, and I decided to press onward with a few questions.

"So, Seifer… Where am I exactly?"

Seifer strolled forward and plopped into an armchair, kicking his boot-clad feet onto the coffee table. He seemed infinitely less tense, and even less angry. "You, my friend, are in my town." A look of annoyance crossed my face and he snickered. "You're in Twilight Town, the one and only, and I'm the one in charge. So don't mess with me anymore or things won't be peachy for you, metal face."

My fingers drifted to the ring in my nose and I frowned. "Twilight Town?"

Seifer's lips formed into a half smile. "I take it you're not from around here."

Then it dawned on me. I was in another _world_! How I hadn't figured it out sooner is beyond me; everything was different here. There was no smell of the sea, the summer sun wasn't shining bright in the sky, there were cobblestones and cement and things I'd never seen before. How could I possibly have not thought of it sooner?

Euphoria washed over my entire body. Warmth and fulfillment and excitement and happiness tingled throughout my skin and my heart beat fast, boom, boom, boom.

I finally did it. I got out.

An uncharacteristic, toothy grin spread across my face, my gray eyes childish and wondrous and stupid.

"No. I'm not."

I ended up telling Seifer and his friends (Fuu and Rai, I learned) everything that happened to Kairi and I over the past year and a half. Everything. Our world disappearing, the voices Kairi had heard, even Axel trying to abduct her. The only thing I left out was my magic-wielding. By the time I had finished telling my story, it was a brighter orange outside (I also learned that Twilight Town didn't exactly have "night"; it simply turned into a dimmer orange and red, unlike the "daytime" yellows and light oranges).

"That's a pretty wild story, y'know?" Rai was leaning back in a green armchair, bulging muscles crossed against his chest. "Gotta be tough havin' your whole world taken away from you. And your friends too, y'know?"

I shrugged carelessly and rubbed my left wrist, which was covered in white gauze. As it turns out I'd sprained my wrist when I 'fell from the sky' or whatever. According to Rai, that's literally what I did. Just slammed down into the ground, coming from nowhere but thin air. It's amazing that aside from a couple bloody scrapes, bruise, a pounding headache and a screwed up wrist I hadn't been seriously injured.

"So your next move is heading home," Seifer stated matter-of-factly. He leaned against the doorframe of the hallway.

"Not exactly." A scrape on my cheek stung and I winced a little, as I snickered in my head. _Going home isn't even my 100th move, not on my watch_. "Kairi is my top priority right now. I have to find her. No matter what."

"And you think she's here?"

I shrugged again. "Well, I'm here, aren't I? We weren't ever separated in that dark portal thing. It just makes sense that she'd be here, too."

"Logic." Fuu's expression hardly ever changed. It was actually quite unnerving.

I nodded nonetheless. "Yeah, it's simple logic. I mean, unless we somehow exited in different places, she should be here too." I stood, pulling my black fingerless gloves from out of my jacket pockets and onto my hands. They nearly concealed my paopu charm bracelet. Nearly.

"I plan on finding her. Right now." I scanned the room, looking at the three friends in the eyes. "Um… Thanks for not leaving me unconscious in the street. It means a lot."

I started for the door until Seifer's demanding and perpetually annoyed stopped me. "Wait." He grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. There was still a certain amount of dislike for me in his eyes, but there seemed to be something new. Something like respect.

"You're gonna need this to take care of yourself. Use it wisely." He dropped a small green bag in my hand, and before I even had time to raise my eyebrows he cut me short. "It's 2,000 munny. So you can buy potions or food or something, I dunno."

"Yo, and if you ever need anything we got your back, y'know? Right, Seifer?" Rai stood in front of me too, a warm grin on his face. He may be an idiot, but he was one hell of a nice guy.

Seifer grimaced a little, hesitated, then looked me dead in the eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, we got your back." A smile nearly formed on his face before he stopped himself, saying "But if you ever try to disrespect me again, you're not gonna get off as easy as you did this time, lamer."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever, man." I opened the front door and smirked. "I guess I'll see you around. Thanks again."

"Hey! And make sure to take it easy, yeah? You were konked out for a while, y'know?" After we had all gotten aquatinted (meaning Seifer and I weren't at each other's throats), Rai informed me that I'd been out cold on their couch for a week solid. Literally, out cold. I hadn't even moved at all. I just laid there, passed out from knocking my head too hard on earth. How lame.

"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." I waved dismissively behind me. "See ya."

I was halfway down the alley when rushing footsteps behind me caused me to turn around. Fuu's silver hair radiated yellow in the 'morning' sun as she sprinted towards me, a giant golden trophy clenched in her hands.

"Wha—Fuu, what are you—"

She stopped a little way ahead of me. The trophy was quite nice looking, large and adorned with four colorful crystals. That is, until Fuu broke off a bright green one and tossed it to me. I caught it with ease, immediately noticing how the sunlight made it sparkle.

I raised my eyebrows at Fuu, and her thin lips formed in an uncharacteristic teeny tiny smile. I had never seen her look anything but deadpan.

That same smile remained on her face for several seconds, and for the first time I heard her speak more than a single word at once.

"Good luck."

And then she whipped around, high-tailed it back down the alley, and disappeared in a flash.

Twilight Town was strange, unlike anything I'd ever seen on Destiny Island. Buildings were tall and made of brick; trains were constantly chugging along their tracks; people were _everywhere_. Compared to the Islands, this place was crawling with civilians.

Somehow I managed to find my way to the Tram Common, where an array of people and shops cluttered the area. I made a stop at a small store owned by an overly toned guy with an earring and a shock of black hair on the top, the sides of his head shaved. He sold strictly weapons because "if you're not a pansy and you're good enough with a sword, you won't need a [insert profanity] shield". His macho attitude amused me greatly, but nonetheless I spent 600 munny on two beautiful hook blades. _Real_ hook blades, not silly wooden ones. They were silver and military green in color, sharp on the hilt and even sharper on the blade. They were the perfect size for my unnaturally large build, and as far as I was concern, worth far more than 600 munny. They were a steal.

Then I stopped at a Defenses shop that was right next to the Weapons shop (which earned a dirty look and an obscene gesture from the Weapons guy). The woman running it was young and sarcastic and had great posture. She made a special deal for me and gave me two protective chains, buy one get one free. She even threw in a bangle to heighten magic (other people use magic?) and three hi-potions. She appreciated my sarcasm so much that she only made me pay 80 munny. Cake.

Newly equipped, fresh faced and determined to find Kairi, I started off, walking north through the Tram Common. The place swam with people and I felt as though I stuck out. Layering was a big thing back on the Islands; not so much here. Everyone wore simple shorts, tank-tops with designs, low-rise sneakers. My aviator goggles, overall-shorts and oversized military jacket suddenly seemed out of place.

This concerned me for approximately two seconds; I soon went right back to not caring whether or not I was being stared at for being new and oddly dressed and having strangely colored hair.

I wandered through that place until eventually I reached a corner where few people lingered, and those who hung around seemed nervous and flighty. There was a giant hole in the cement wall, large enough for three people standing next to each other to go through. Something drew me to it and I peered ahead. Past the hole was a thick forest, dark and unending. A deep sense of foreboding made me hesitate, but the thought of a frightened Kairi alone in a giant forest gave me the courage to walk through, looking much more confident than I actually felt.

The forest was most definitely dark; I could barely see my hand in front of my face. My black and white hi-tops crunched the leaves and fallen twigs beneath me and I couldn't help but speed up a little when the darkness seemed a bit too close.

_I'm used to denser jungles than this back home, this is a piece of cake,_ I thought smugly, a smile creeping on my face. That did not stop me from gripping the hilts of my hook blades until my knuckles turned white.

Luckily for me, light shone through to the other side of the forest. I would've never guessed that the biggest building I'd ever seen in my entire life would be there, just standing in the clearing of a forest with tall wrought iron gates around it.

"What the hell?" I murmured to myself, tilting my head to examine everything. My eyes scanned the entire mansion until my eyes settled on the second story window. The plain white curtain seemed to be moving. Peculiar.

I didn't have time to ponder the curtains' movement because I was suddenly knocked forward, a blow feeling much like a hard slap landing in the small of my back. I reeled forward and dodge rolled on the ground to regain my balance upright. By the time I had regained my footing, I was already in a defensive stance.

"What the hell?!" I yelled again. Five of those white demons from the Island were in front of me, slinking closer and closer.

This time, I felt no panic. I charged them, dragging the tips of my hook blades along the ground before jumping up and attacking one with a double slash. It instantly burst into black and white tendrils that floated into the sky.

There was no time to celebrate my small victory because another one was closing in on me, upside down and soaring through the air, its arms flailing. Carefully, I dodge rolled underneath its frenzying limbs and slashed it from behind, where it too burst into nothing.

Now the other three were advancing on me and I allowed myself a small smile; I knew I could handle whatever they threw my way. Two charged at once, coming from the right and the left. I sent a strong stream of lightning to the one on my right as I sprinted to the other one and slashed it, taking both of them out easily.

Finally, there was only one, slinking ever closer to me. It convulsed and moved slowly and I twirled my hook blades in my hands, a large grin on my face. Man, this proves that all my sparing in my life has been for good cause.

Excitement grew as I allowed the monstrosity to advance on me; I planned on letting this one to take its time so I could relish my victory. What was the rush anyways?

As it turns out, maybe I should've been rushing, for just as the figure got close enough for me to scrape with the hook of my blade, a giant weapon of silver and gold flew out of nowhere, causing the thing to burst into its white and black nothing.

"What the hell?!" I yelled again, for the third time in succession. The weapon curved back like a boomerang and flew back to its wielder, and I was none too excited to have encountered them.

"Did you not see that I had this covered? Taking that thing out would've literally been the easiest thing in the world and you took it away from me! Who do you think you are to go arou—"

I stopped. My mouth dropped open. My eyes widened. I blinked multiple times, just to make sure what I was seeing was real.

It seemed to be no mirage. My face broke into the widest grin that my small mouth could manage. And I laughed out loud. Out of glee, out of joy, out of excitement, out of a childlike whimsy from seeing someone you'd been missing for a year and a half.

Because standing right in front of me was one of my best friends in the entire world.

**I didn't proof read this at all I am sorry. Parts of it make no sense, but please, bear with me.**


	5. The White Room

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing that has to do with Kingdom Hearts. I only own Akira. Like, _of course_ I own the bitchy one.

_"__It's just not fair, y'know?" an eleven year old Sora signed, exasperated and annoyed. "He always beats me. Always. It's just not fair."_

_I sighed and rolled my eyes, fiddling with the strap of my aviator goggles. "I dunno what you mean Sora. Be a bit more specific, if ya don't mind." My voice was sarcastic and vaguely uncaring. Even as a twelve year old, I was virtually the same as I am now._

_His brows furrowed, the spikes of his hair seeming to droop with his attitude. "Like, he always beats me at everything. Sparring, racing, other stuff." His voice lingered slightly on 'other stuff' and I raised my eyebrows._

_"__What other stuff?"_

_Sora sighed again. He sure was in a sigh-y mood, which was strange given his usual cheerful disposition. "You're gonna make fun of me."_

_I let out a short bark of a laugh. "Yeah, well that's a given. When _don't_ I make fun of you?"_

_Sora seemed to ponder this for a second before he laughed too, high-pitched and cheer-filled. "I guess you have a point, Akira." He stayed silent before he continued. "Well, this is gonna sound dumb… But I think Kairi likes to hang out with him more than me."_

_I sat up from my position on the sand, leaning back on my hands to stare at him quizzically. "Why would you think that she likes to hang out with Riku more than you?"_

_He shrugged. "I dunno, she's just always around him. Laughing at his jokes and calling him smart. She never does any of that to me."_

_It dawned on me. "Oh my gosh, you have a crush on her."_

_Sora's immature face turned bright red in the clear island sun. "No! No I don't!" I stared at him longer, a growing smirk on my face before he sighed and slumped his shoulders. "Well… Maybe. But you can't tell anyone!"_

_"__Yeah, yeah," I waved him off dismissively, my tone uncaring, but we both knew that his secret would be safe with me._

_He was silent for a while before he rolled onto his belly, looking up at me with his huge puppy dog eyes. "What do I do?"_

_I thought about it for a few seconds, biting the inside of my cheek thoughtfully. It occurred to me that I had no romantic experience at all (I wouldn't until I turned fourteen years old), so my advice wouldn't mean jack. "I dunno, kid." I had taken to calling Sora 'kid', which irritated him greatly. He hated to be thought of as a baby. After all, I was only a mere year older than him._

_Surprisingly, Sora didn't seem annoyed. Just more exasperated. "Come on Akira, you've gotta help me out! I can't let him win her!"_

_I rolled my eyes. "Okay, first of all kid, she's not a prize or something dumb like that. You can't win her. Second," I paused a little, biting the inside of my cheek again, "I don't think he's even _trying_ to get her. They're just good friends."_

_Sora seemed puzzled by this. "Well… if that's the case… then what does that mean for me?"_

_I shrugged dismissively, still a little weirded out by Sora's admission of his crush on Kairi. Little did I know that this was only the first of many of these little talks with him. "I guess you just be her friend. And maybe one day she'll come along."_

_Sora seemed to be restored of his usual cheer by the supplement of any kind of advice. "You really think that'll work?"_

_I had no damn clue. I was only twelve years old, not concerned with romance, and I definitely wasn't concerned with any little crush my friends had on one another. But still, to comfort him, I smiled. _

_"__Maybe so, kid. Maybe so."_

"Sora!" I screamed, dropping my hook blades to the floor and dashing for my friend. His expression was one of shock; I don't think he had been expecting to run into me, either.

"Akira!" He ran towards me too, and when we met we engulfed each other in the type of hug older sisters give to their kid brothers after they ride a bike for the first time. We were elated. God, I missed this kid.

We held each other for a long time, laughing and spinning like little kids, and he yelled "You're here!" every once in a while, followed by more of his usual cheerful laughter.

Eventually we pulled apart, both of us with huge grins on our face, me still gripping his shoulders in my gloved hands, like a proud mom or something. "Sora, oh my god, you got huge!"

And he really had; while I had stopped my growing at the ripe age of 13, he seemed to have gone through a growth spurt. He was nearly eye level to my nose now instead of below my shoulders.

"Akira, how did you get here? This is amazing!" His voice was filled with pure happiness, his blue eyes alight.

"It's kinda crazy, but what's really important is _where you've been the past year and a half_. Seriously though. Kairi missed the hell outta you."

As if it were even possible, Sora seemed even more brightened. "A long story I guess. She really missed me?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, and she's not the only one, stupid." I knocked my knuckles on his forehead and he pouted. "I missed having someone to annoy all the time. I had to settle for Kairi."

He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, sorry. Habit. I missed you soooo much though. I've gotta catch you up, yeah?" I nodded and he grinned, crossing his ankles and placing the back of his head in his hands. Geez, this guy hadn't changed much.

"Let's start with… Well, I guess Kairi filled you in on everything that happened before the Islands came back, yeah? Ansem and all that jazz." He had his eyes trained on the sky, his brow furrowed and mouth wide open in a perfect O. As dunce-like as ever, just as he had been a year and a half ago. "You know everything that happened with Riku, right?"

I clenched my jaw, thinking of how Kairi had described him. Possessed and dangerous and controlled by a horrible darkness. I pushed it out of my mind, not wanting to picture my best friend that way. "Yeah."

"Oh yeah, um… Sorry about that." He eyed me for a second and saw my strained face. "He's good now. Somewhere out there. Don't worry."

"What?!" My screech caused him to jump a little, making him lose his balance and nearly topple over. "He hasn't been with you?! Kairi told me you were gonna find him and get him out of the Room of Darknoise or whatever."

"Realm of Darkness," he corrected, pointing. I didn't care.

"Ugh! Same thing! It doesn't matter!" I pulled at the ends of my braid, particularly hard. "Geez, so you have no idea where he is?"

Sora smiled lightheartedly and laughed at my exasperation and worry. "Nope! But I'll find him."

I stared. "You seem very sure about yourself, kid. You better be right." I stopped tugging on my hair and sighed. "Well… I suppose I'm not doing much better, huh? Don't hate me—but I have no idea where Kairi is."

I prepared myself for the tears. You see, Sora wasn't a yeller. No, not at all. He was an avid fan of crying, though. Crying when he was stressed, upset, happy. Whatever. I've seen many waterworks shows from this guy in my day, so I was expecting for the faucets to turn on and the tears to begin flowing. Besides, I'd lost his dream girl. That was most definitely a cry-worthy moment.

Strangely enough, a big, wide, goofy grin formed on his face.

"But Akira, that's the thing. I think I do!"

We sat against the brick wall outside the mansion for a long time, discussing what had happened with both of us. Catching up, really. He told me about all his adventures he'd been through the past year and a half. He gave me a quick run through of his first journey to rescue the worlds, what those white creatures were (Nobodies. And apparently, there were more kinds than just that one, which I also learned was called a Dusk), Organization XIII, his most recent journey to find Riku and save the worlds again, and how he had been asleep for a year which caused everyone to forget him (that explains it!).

I was quite blown away by his fantastical tale, amazed at everything he had accomplished. I still saw him as a little kid mostly. Just a small little child, who wasn't strong or capable and was optimistic all the time out of sheer ignorance. But he wasn't ignorant anymore. He'd seen plenty of things, things I'd never get to see even in my wildest dreams.

So when it came time for me to tell him what had happened to Kairi and I, I almost felt sheepish to share. My story didn't stack up to his. No, not at all. But I told it regardless, starting with the night our island disappeared and how I'd been on my way to save the raft (he laughed wholeheartedly. "Me too!"). Then I continued on to how Kairi had insisted he had existed because she had felt him in her heart (he blushed furiously around that part), her trance she had been in for nearly a whole month, Axel and his Dusks, and finally what had happened to me here in Twilight Town. I even told him about my magic. Not where I got it, though. No, that was my own special memory.

He giggled. I raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"It's just funny." He put his hands behind his head, pressing the backs of them into the brick wall. "I'm lookin' for your best friend and you're lookin' for mine. But now we're gonna look for them together." He smiled. "Lucky for you, I think I know just the place to start."

We strolled through the gates of the mansion together, still talking and laughing. Given the random, creepy building holding things unknown not even a stone's throw away from us, perhaps we should have been a bit more solemn and serious. But what can I say? Sora's the kind of guy that can make practically _anyone_ smile.

"Well, apparently you've gotten a whole lot better at fighting since the last time I saw you." I smirked at him, knowing it would get some sort of reaction.

"Hey! I wasn't that bad!"

"I beg to differ." Broken and crumbling columns surrounded us. I felt like I should probably be scared or at least a bit cautious, but I didn't find myself to be the slightest bit afraid. I usually never was.

"Yeah? Well you… Ugh! I'm not good with comebacks!" He scratched the back of his head and giggled.

I laughed too. "What's your weapon, anyways? Classic sword you used on the Island?" I jabbed a finger to my back where my hook blades hung, strapped in diagonally to my jacket. "I still use the hook blades. _Real _ones now, of course. Totally wicked cool, by the way."

He smiled. "Yeah, I saw you in action back there. Pretty cool stuff you were doing. Especially with that magic. You're using a lot of powerful stuff I hadn't even unlocked in myself yet."

I didn't really listen to him. Instead, I glanced over his person. No weapon was hanging from his sides. He didn't have anything in his hands. Nothing was strapped to his back. "Um… Sora?"

"Yeah?" We had finally reached the large double doors of the mansion. They loomed over us like a judge. I got a bad energy from this place and bit the inside of my cheek.

"Well, I saw you use your weapon earlier, obviously. But uh… Did you leave it outside the gates or…?" I glanced between him and the doors. For some reason I felt as though I needed to keep an eye on them.

He laughed. "That's so weird! I can't believe I left this part out; it's like, one of the more important parts of my story."

Sora stretched out his right hand, and in a second a bright light emitted from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It swirled in his hand, shining bright enough to blind us. But it felt…warm. And familiar.

Then it appeared. A long, silver and yellow key.

I felt my heart race. My eyes widened and I grinned from ear to ear, as big as my tiny mouth would allow me to grin. I _knew_ I'd see one of these things again.

"The Keyblade," he said, a triumphant grin on his face, as if he were trying to show me that he'd grown up since the last time I'd seen him. "I'm the chosen one. Pretty cool, huh?"

I kept smiling. "Yeah. Yeah, it is." I paused. "Do you think I could, like, hold it?"

"Um, yeah sure." He handed it over. "Don't expect it to stay in your hands long. It doesn't like _weak hearts_." He smiled in an 'I-got-you!' sort of way and I laughed in spite of myself.

Contrary to what Sora said, it stayed in my hands. And it felt good, too. It felt very _right_. It was warm, like I remembered it to be. My arm tingled, starting from the tips up my fingers, then to my wrists and then all the way up, building up and up and up until it reached the muscles of my shoulders.

I twisted it experimentally in my hands. Slashed it carefully in the air in front of me. Smiled. Handed it back. "It's really cool, Sora."

Sora grinned widely, obviously proud. Compliments from me were rare, so he'd take what he could get. "Yeah, it is, isn't it? And only certain people get to have a Keyblade. So I'm pretty special, I guess."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't flatter yourself." Then my eyes flickered back to the doors. "Well, we've been standing here an unusual amount of time, yeah? So maybe we should, y'know, _stop_ doing that."

Sora smiled and carefully pushed open the heavy double doors. "You haven't changed a bit, have you?"

The inside of the mansion was in even worse shape than the outside yard. Pieces of the floor were ripped apart, the carpet was torn to shreds, the roof had severe water damage, the wallpaper hung limply to the wall, somehow still attached. It was a wonder this place hadn't completely fallen apart yet.

"Still nicer than my house," I murmured under my breath as I walked forward to the first room on the left.

"Um… Shouldn't we like, stick together? I mean, you don't even know what we're looking for. And I kinda do. Kinda. But not really."

"Nah," I waved him off dismissively, already pressing an ear to the giant wooden door. There were no sounds coming from the inside and I pushed it open.

"You're just kidding, right?" he yelled after me, his voice echoing through the deserted mansion.

"Nah," I yelled back at him, grinning to myself. He was easy to mess with.

Apparently it worked, because the next thing I heard was a load groan escape from his mouth. Stifling my laughter, I scanned the room I'd stepped in to. Nothing special, really. It was in pretty much the same condition as the rest of the mansion. One thing was quite different, though. In the middle of the room was a giant wooden table smashed completely down the middle.

Which of course means that someone inhabited this place. I told myself that it must've been a long time ago, considering the state of the entire building. That didn't stop a shiver from spiraling up my spine, though.

Exiting that room, I found myself to be comforted by the feeling of my hook blades in my hands. Easily accessible, and right in front of me. "Okay Sora, where to?"

He shrugged, twirling his Keyblade in his hand. Seems he had the same idea as me. "Dunno. That's why we gotta look."

I raised an eyebrow. "And you're sure this place is how we're gonna find Riku and Kairi?"

He smiled. "That's what my friends said. They'll be here soon."

"What? What friends?"

Sora placed his hands behind his head, lounging. "Some people from here, some people who I've known a long time. Trust me Akira; you'll like them just fine."

I wasn't so sure, but I nodded nonetheless in agreement. "So... We wait?"

"Yup!"

Glancing around at this place, I wasn't sure how Sora could _possibly_ wait around! This mansion was so different from anything I'd ever seen on the islands. My craving for adventure would not allow me to just simply stand around and 'wait'.

"I'm gonna go look around, then." My feet carried me to the left stairway, squinting up into the darkness to see what lie on the second level. This place would really benefit from some windows or something. "Just yell for me if they get here."

"And _you_ yell for me if you run into any trouble."

I snickered. "Like I need your help."

He scoffed and I chuckled quietly to myself, and if I had seen his face at that moment I'm sure I would've felt quite triumphant, but I was already ascending the staircase. The banister was wooden and splintering and I made sure that my exposed skin was nowhere near it. It seemed as though _nothing_ in this place was in mint condition.

When I finally reached the second floor, there seemed to be nothing but two doors, each on opposite ends of the floor. I raised my eyebrows. This place seemed so _empty_. And not just devoid-of-people empty. Like, even the atmosphere felt empty. It almost felt as though no one had ever even been here in the first place (this is obviously untrue, given the state of that table in the last room I checked out, but still).

I leaned against the door on the left side, listening in just like I had for the last door. Nothing alerted me, so I pushed it open, eager to explore.

And boy, was this a perfect place to explore.

The entire room was white. No kidding. White tiled floors, pristine white wallpaper. Even the drapes and the giant table and chairs were plain, pure white. The only thing that showed any sort of contrast were the colorful drawings taped to the walls all around me, the drawings strewn out on the floor, piled in messy stacks on the table. Slightly suspicious, I went to inspect the one closest to me on the wall.

On the off-white sheet of paper was a messy scribble of the backside view of two boys. One was wearing a black coat, his spiky blonde hair sticking up tall. The other boy had on red shorts and too-large shoes, his brown hair sticking up equally as tall. They held hands.

Raising my eyebrows, I walked to the next one on the wall. Four people standing next to each other in a tropical setting. It was only their silhouettes against an island sky so there were no specific details, but I could tell that two of the people depicted were much taller than the other two.

Perplexed, I went to wander around the room to look for more drawings when something ruffle-y got caught on my shoe. I picked it up, quite thankful that I hadn't smudged the paper. It was (of course) another drawing. This drawing was even messier than the last two, almost seeming as if it was drawn in a frenzy. In it, a tall, dark-skinned man with long silver hair and a black coat stood stock-still, his arms wrapped around a young girl. The girl was decked out in black and green, hugging back with ferocity. You could see that they were pressing into each other by how the pink of her hair and the black of his coat melded together on the edges.

A feeling of worry settled itself deep in the pit of my stomach, strong and aching, demanding to be acknowledged. Was that… me?

"Do you like them?"

I whipped around, my hook blades drawn and ready to attack. My heart beat, nearly exploding out of my chest, an almost-squeal forming in the back of my throat. I prepared myself for a lunge, then stopped, my eyes falling on who had spoken.

In the farthest chair at the head of the table sat a young girl, probably my age, maybe a year younger. Her long blonde hair formed in a mop on her forehead and fell down to her chest, curling in certain spots, refusing to be tamed. Her simple white dress matched the room perfectly. Her skin was almost as white as the dress.

Then, she giggled.

"Oh, I'm sorry if I scared you. I really didn't mean to."

I raised my eyebrows, taken aback. Who is this girl? "Um… It's okay. I was just startled. I hadn't really expected anyone else to be here…" I glanced to the door. Closed, just like I had left it. "Are you one of Sora's friends?"

She seemed to think for a second then smiled. "Yes. I suppose I am." She looked me up and down, kindness in her wide blue eyes. "You can sit, Akira. I'd really like it if you did."

Somewhat tentatively, I pulled out the chair on the other end of the table and sat down, my weapons still held loosely in my hands. Not that I planned on attacking her; just a precaution. "You know my name?"

Again, she smiled, her eyes closing. "Yes. I know a lot about you, actually." Her eyes opened, that same warm smile on her face. She seemed to be one of the least threatening people I could even imagine. "My name is Namine."

Even through the weapon-holding I had done, the drawing I had previously had was still in my grasp. "So Namine… Uh, did you draw these?" I placed the drawing of the pink-haired girl that looked too much like me for me to feel comfortable on the table.

Namine nodded, her hands gliding to her lap. So proper. "Yes. I did. They're kind of nice, aren't they?" Her gaze drifted around the room, resting on the thousands of drawings scattered throughout the place, seeming rather far away.

Geez, this is surreal. "Yeah, yeah they are." I bit the inside of my cheek, unsure of what was even happening. "Is this one… um, is this one of me?"

She shrugged. "It could be. We just have to see, yeah?"

This was making no sense. "Why do you draw these? And why do you know my name?"

Our gazes met, locked, and refused to move. She did not blink. "I draw memories, Akira. It's what I surround my life with. It's what I am."

I raised my eyebrows. "I don't remember doing any of this, though," I insisted, pointing at the picture of maybe-me hugging the man in the coat. "This never happened. It's not a memory."

Namine looked at me as though I was a small child who she had to explain the reasons why the moon looked different on different days. "That's simply because it hasn't happened yet. But it will eventually, so therefore it's a memory. It _will_ be a memory." Her voice was soft, like a gentle kiss to my ears.

"Well, who is that man, then?" I pointed again to the drawing, my fingers, gently rubbing over the undecipherable face. I had never met anyone who looked like him in my life.

Nonetheless, Namine smiled again. "Let's just say… A friend."

Silence filled the room. I was perplexed, that's for sure. How in the world did she know the future? How did she know _me_? How could she know my memories before I had even experienced them?

"I've drawn more of you, Akira. Quite a bit more, actually."

I shifted in my seat. "Have you?"

Namine nodded. "Yes, I have. Would you like to see them? Most of them are right in front of you, actually."

Tentatively, I allowed my gaze to break from hers and examine the table in front of me. Sure enough, in messy stacks an arm's length away from me were careless scribbles of pink and black. I reached for them, scooping them into my hands.

The first one was me as a child with two other children next to me who I could only assume to be Riku and Kairi, given the color scheme. We were on the island we hung out at all the time, sitting happily on the paopu tree.

I leafed through them carefully. Most of them were of me, the boys and Kairi all together and hanging out, as kids and as teenagers, all the way up until nearly a year and a half ago when our world was swallowed in darkness. There was even a picture of us building our raft together.

My fingers flew through them. "How… How do you know about all of—"

I stopped. I had come across another picture of a memory that had not yet happened. In it I looked triumphant and brave; even in the unintelligible scribbles you could see the determination in my eyes. I was clothed differently and in a place I could not recognize. A man was in front of me, old and hunchback, threateningly holding his arm out to me. My right hand glowed, bright light emitting from it.

"Namine… What is this?"

I looked up to, puzzled by this non-memory, but the chair across from me was empty.

"Akira!" Sora's voice sounded from downstairs. "They're here! Come down!"

My eyes widened and I looked around, half expecting for Namine to be hiding in a corner waiting to pounce. Alas, she was nowhere to be found, and I backed myself up to the door of the White Room before opening it and hightailing it down the stairs, hook blades in hand and fear in my heart.


	6. Friends and Foe

**DISCLAIMER: **Kingdom Hearts ain't mine. If I owned any part of it, it wouldn't be nearly ten years for a direct sequel to come out I mean damn.

When Sora had said "friends", I had imagined maybe two or three people. No, no, no, no. Two or three people apparently did not even begin to cut it, because when I arrived downstairs, frazzled from the encounter I had just had upstairs, I ran smack into an entire group of people.

"Woah, Akira! You look really pale! Are you okay?" Sora patted my back in concern, a smile on his face.

I shook my head. "I'm… I'm fine. Don't worry about it. Just, there's a kinda creepy room up there and…" I trailed off, shaking my head. Logic told me that Namine would not be in that room anymore, and Sora would simply think I was messing with him like I always do. There was no point in me being branded a liar. "Forget about it. Who's the motley crew?"

And god, were they motley. There were seven people in all (using the term 'people' loosely. You will soon understand why), four of whom were very obviously from Twilight Town based on dress. The other three were something different entirely. One of them was tall, not much shorter than myself really, and looked very much like a dog standing upright. Another one looked like an eternally pissed off duck, and the last one was a rather regal looking, person-sized mouse.

Sora laughed good-naturedly at my comment. "Well Akira, these are all my friends! First, the Twilight Town gang."

Ha. I was right.

A boy with dirty blonde hair and an obvious bad attitude stepped forward, swaggering with his steps. He literally just did _not_ care at all. I like that. "Name's Hayner. This here is Olett—"

"Don't speak for me," a girl with brown hair and emerald eyes scoffed, her arms crossed. Hayner rolled his eyes, but complied anyways, stepping back in line with the other three. The girl continued. "You'll have to excuse Hayner. He's known to be a _giant_ pain." Hayner scoffed, but the girl didn't even seem to notice it. "Anyway, my name is Olette. This is Pence," a bigger guy with spiky brown hair and a red tank top waved kindly, "and then this one over here is Ansel." A girl with wide brown eyes and short black hair smiled timidly at me, her short stature making her obvious shyness seem even more prominent.

I was highly amused with Olette's don't-sass-me attitude, but I was more focused on who the hell these animal-human-not-human things were. "Okay, nice to meet you guys, then. And uh… Who are you three?"

The mouse smiled kindly, his big black ears perking up. "This over here is Goofy," he motioned to the dog, "and this guy over here is Donald Duck," cue the hand wave to the pissed off duck. "And I'm King Mickey. We're all old friends of Sora's."

My lips curled into a smile. "Yeah, me too. Weird to think that Sora's capable of making new friends in the first place."

"Hey!" Sora groaned, and everyone else chuckled. It is a proven fact that poking fun at a mutual friend is the easiest way to break the ice with new people. The method had never failed me before, and it was obviously not failing me now.

After the laughter died down, Mickey stepped forward, a look of determination in his eyes. "Well, we all know why we've come here, right?" There were murmurs from the crowd, but Mickey continued regardless. "We all believe that there is an alternate Twilight Town and that the way to get there is in this mansion. Our job is to split up and search for it. Now, let's separate into groups. Hayner, Olette and Goofy, you go to search outside. Sora, Akira and Ansel will search upstairs. Donald, Pence and I will look around down here. Everyone okay with that?" No one protested, and he smiled. "Okay, let's go!"

Hayner and Olette parted first, bickering, but oddly enough their hands were entwined, fingers laced together. I found that to be quite puzzling but soon pushed it to the back of my mind. Love was weird and dumb and I couldn't possibly be bothered with it, even if it involved two people I barely knew.

Mickey and Pence strolled around the room, Donald looking rather reluctant to do anything at all. Then soon enough, Goofy followed the love birds outside, seeming to want to give them privacy.

Sora grinned. "That's our cue, guys. To the second floor!" He ran excitedly to the second story, leaving the short, dark-haired girl and I alone to ascend the stairs.

I glanced at her. She played with the ends of her hair nervously, twirling the short strands in between her fingers. After a couple seconds she met my gaze and smiled timidly, her nose scrunching. "Ready to go?" Her voice was soft and quiet, like she was uncomfortable with being heard.

Essentially, I could already tell we were complete opposites. "Yeah. Your name is Ansel, right?"

She nodded, adjusting the bottom of her flowy pastel blue baby doll top. Ansel was obviously a fidgeter. "Yes, that's my name. And you're Akira?"

We walked towards the stairs slowly, her arms held limply behind her back. I smiled at her. "That's me." We were silent during the ascension, and she began to wander to the left side of the floor; the White Room where Namine had been.

"No! No. You don't have to go in there." Ansel whipped around, her head cocked, obviously confused. "I already checked it out. There's nothing spectacular in there, really. Just a bunch of drawings from the previous owner or something."

"Oh. Um… Is there anywhere else to—"

"There's another room on the other side of this story," I explained, jabbing a thumb behind me. "I didn't get the chance to check it out yet, so this'll be a first for the both of us."

Ansel nodded and we moseyed down the hall, taking our time. Given the urgency of the situation (another Twilight Town? The possibility of finding Riku and Kairi? Maybe going on an adventure? Amazing.), we were going a bit too slow for my tastes; but Ansel seemed too nice for me to push around, so I went with the flow.

"So Ansel… What was Mickey talking about exactly? The whole duplicate Twilight Town thing."

Ansel glanced at me quickly before returning her gaze to the long hallway ahead of us. "Olette believes that there's some kind of _other _Twilight Town out there. Everything that's one-of-a-kind in this town seems to have been duplicated. It's all very strange, really. It might seem like a far off theory, but I wouldn't doubt it."

I fiddled mindlessly with my nose ring, watching the short girl carefully. "You believe her?"

The brown-eyed girl bit her lip, and then nodded. "Yeah. It makes sense. Especially with…" She trailed off, her voice fading into nothing.

"Especially with what?" I prompted.

Ansel shrugged, seeming conflicted. We were halfway down the hallway now. "I don't know. It's just that… Sometimes I have these dreams about this guy I've never met. And… We were really close. Kind of…" a furious blush formed on her nose and cheeks, covering her many freckles. "Kind of romantic, even. And I just feel like they're too vivid to just be dreams." She glanced at me carefully, obviously embarrassed by what she had just admitted. "It sounds dumb. It _is_ dumb."

My lips formed into a warm smile. "That's not the strangest thing I've ever heard, you know." Ansel smiled back, the blush on her face subsiding, her nose scrunching again. Truthfully, she was quite beautiful. Beautiful in that timid-shy-girl-who-reads-a-lot kind of way.

"Good. I don't want you to think I'm crazy," she joked, her voice just as quiet as usual. She reminded me of a mouse; flighty, silent, and very good at staying unnoticed.

We had finally reached the door on the other side of the floor. I shushed Ansel (who in reality would never need shushing. Like, ever) and pressed my ear to the door. Rummaging could be heard on the other side. My mind instantly jumped to suspicion, wondering if Namine had come back to freak me out and say more cryptic things, but logic told me that it was most likely Sora. Then something fell to the floor and I heard his voice mumble "Oops", which verified my thought.

"Geez Sora, don't tear the place up!" I yelled sarcastically, slamming the door open and causing him to jump (Ansel did, too. Oops). I grinned to myself.

Sora waved his arms exasperatedly. A large leather-bound book lay at his feet, obviously being the thing he'd dropped. "Akira! This place is really creepy! You can't just go around slamming doors and expecting me not to get freaked out!'

I rolled my eyes. "That was the goal, kid."

My eyes hovered around the room. It seemed to be the most well-kept place in this entire mansion. The roof was intact, the carpet didn't even seem to have dirt on it, and the wallpaper was stuck firmly in its place. Hundreds—no, thousands—of books surrounded the entire room, stacked high into the air, scrapping the ceiling. However, there was an oddity to this room; the middle of it was gone, a staircase descending into an entirely different room.

Ansel looked down into it, fiddling with the hem of her white shorts. "This must be it, yeah?" She was already a quiet person; her voice from farther away was near impossible to hear.

Sora's mouth opened agape. "What?! Really? You think so?" I hate to say that he had absolutely no sarcasm in his voice; he seemed 100% sincere. "I just thought it was a weird part of the room!"

Ansel and I glanced at each other, a silent message of 'this guy is freaking hopeless' traveling between us. "Sora. I worry so deeply for you. Truly, I do." I patted him on the shoulder condescendingly. Ansel couldn't help but let out a tiny giggle. "Just… Go get the others, okay?"

As it turns out, the only other person who had done any sort of searching at all was Mickey, so truthfully we were lucky that we quite literally stumbled into the questionable duplicate-y part of the mansion.

Speaking of the questionable duplicate-y part of the mansion, it was definitely the strangest part. Underneath a building of ruin, a pristine, hi-tech lab lay underneath, complete with all kinds of screens and computers I couldn't even begin to wrap my mind around. The entire room glowed blue and I shivered. It felt recently inhabited, and this thought did not sit well with me.

Sora, Olette, Hayner, Pence and Donald crowded around the main computer, tentatively pressing various buttons to try and make something happen (I laughed at their inability to operate a computer, but truthfully I wouldn't have been able to do any better). Goofy stood quietly behind them, observing and occasionally attempting to assist them. Ansel lingered far behind anyone else, looking over the various other screens in the room that seemed to be portraying someone's stats. The only people uninvolved were the King and I. We stood in the doorway of the lab, watching the rooms outside of it. I stood here because I felt like something might pop in on us, and it seemed like the King had the same idea, his own Keyblade held firmly in a gloved hand.

The King glanced up at me—way up—and smiled. "So you're the famous Akira I've heard so much about."

I cocked my head. "You've heard about me?" Generally when someone tells me they've 'heard so much about' me, it's not a good sign.

Still, Mickey nodded, his smile never faltering. "Yes. I've heard a lot about you from Riku, you know. You two sound very close."

I could not help the static that engulfed my body. "Wha—What? You've talked to Riku? What? When? Is he okay?"

Mickey laughed lightheartedly, his grin widening out of fondness. "Riku and I are good friends. We've went on quite a few adventures together. He talked about you a lot, wanting to get back to his best friend on the Islands. He said you were a pistol and that you were gruff and insolent and witty and a little bit obsessive. A lot like him, I think." He glanced at me. "You remind me of him."

I couldn't contain my eye roll. Trust me, I tried. "Well it's nice to hear he's been speaking so highly of me," I said, completely deadpan.

The King chuckled and I continued. "But he's okay right? Like, he's safe and just waiting for the right time to come back to the Islands?"

The smile vanished from the Kings face. Instead he looked thoughtful, his brow furrowed. "I can't say a word. I've already said too much, actually. I made a promise."

I was taken aback. "What? What do you mean?"

The friendly mouse opened his mouth to reply, but he snapped it shut when Olette cried out, "Hey! I think we figured it out!"

Everyone crowded around the giant screen, all nine of us. Being taller than everyone else (Hayner was so only an inch or two shorter than me; impressive), I stood in the back, allowing all the shorties to migrate to the front. Even with the concentration of bodies, chills still traveled up and down my spine.

The computer displayed a pass lock screen, a question in bold at the top. I could not read the screen due to the many heads in front of me, but The King soon exclaimed, "Ansem the Wise loved sea salt ice cream!" The clickity-clackity sounds of typing filled my ears and then a small rumble sounded to the right of us. A beam of light had produced itself from a hole in the ceiling, shooting down onto a small platform.

"That has to be it. It has to be," Sora murmured, wandering closer to the light. He examined it for a couple seconds, grinned at us widely and waved. "See you on the other side!" Then he stepped backwards into the light, disappearing in an instant.

"Woah! He done disappeared!" Goofy yelped.

"Come on, Goofy!" Donald yelped back, running full charge into the stream of light. Soon they were both gone, leaving only the King, the Twilight Town gang and I.

Pence grinned. "We'll hold the fort down here."

Hayner scoffed and shoved his friend playfully. "Sure, like _you'll_ be able to do anything."

Then Olette slapped Hayner in the arm, a scowl on her face. "Don't be rude!"

Hayner rolled his eyes, but kissed Olette on the cheek nonetheless, mumbling a quiet 'sorry' in her ear.

Throughout this entire exchange, Ansel simply stared at me, communicating with me silently, her large eyes saying things she would probably be too shy to say out loud. _Be safe. I really hope everything works out for you._

The King glanced to me, a kind smile on his lips. "You don't have to go if you don't want to, Akira. We all understand if you're scared or yo—"

I was already stepping through, barely even hearing him. I halted my pace and turned my head towards the whole gang, rolling my eyes. "Riku must've not told you enough about me, then. I'm not afraid of anything." With a large grin, I slipped on my aviator goggles, very excited by the fact that I was going on yet another adventure leading to who knows what. "See you whenever, guys. Oh! And Ansel?" Her eyes shot up, looking black in the dark lab. "Dreams mean more than you think. Don't doubt yourself anymore."

And I stepped through the light, a crazy, exhilarated laugh escaping my lips.

The trip through the beam of light wasn't exactly what I'd been expecting. Truthfully, it wasn't even goggles worthy. Nothing felt different; I simply opened my eyes and ended up in a laboratory that looked near identical to the one I'd been in before. The only difference was the lack of people and the giant computer screen which was smashed to pieces, dangerous glass shards scattered on the floor.

Sora, Donald and Goofy were all there, standing casually by the doorway to the next room. Sora had his hands behind his head, leaning casually on his toes. "Is anyone else coming?"

I shrugged. "If they were they'd be here by now, so I guess it's just us four."

"Five!" King Mickey had appeared beside me and I hadn't even noticed, causing me to jump. He chuckled. "Sorry I startled ya. But I thought you weren't scared of anything."

Sora laughed. I frowned. "Let's just go save Kairi, okay? Is that alright with you, all-powerful Keyblade wielders?"

"Let's go!" Goofy cheered, opening the door to the next room and running through. We all followed, and the place we needed to go was quite obvious.

In the corner of this dull, dark room was a small, green, circle-shaped portal. It made the whole room cold, sending chills up and down my exposed legs. "Logic tells me that's what we're lookin' for."

"Yup," Sora smiled, advancing on it. "Let's go see if this leads where we need it to, yeah?" And he stepped forward, disappearing into nothing.

"Well, come on!" Donald exclaimed to an idling Goofy and they ran in together, the King hot on their trail.

I approached the portal, fiddling with my paopu fruit charm bracelet. I didn't trust this thing, not one bit. But this was part of the adventure and I knew I'd love it regardless. Taking air deep into my lungs, I charged full speed ahead into the portal, excited for what was about to happen.

When I had ended up on the other side of the portal, Sora, Donald and Goofy were engaged in a quite heated fight with some Dusks. Seeing that the King was nowhere to be seen, I sent a bit of curing magic to a beaten up looking Donald and jumped head on into the fight, my hook blades drawn and a deadly smirk on my face.

I charged two in front of me, stabbing them with the points on my blades. "Where's the King?!"

Sora threw his Keyblade to a Nobody that had advanced far too close to Goofy and jumped back towards me, eyeing the enemies around us. "I don't know!" The Keyblade sliced through the Dusk and turned back around like a boomerang, racing back to Sora. "He just ran off and disappeared!"

A Nobody glided in the air ahead of me and I kicked out with my foot, sending a time freezing spell with the tips of my toes (I hadn't even known I could control magic with my other extremities until just now. Like. Wow. That's actually really cool.), causing it to stop in mid-flight. "That's not very kinglike of him," I mumbled before sending a thunderstorm to the Dusk, not even watching it disintegrate. There were too many other enemies to focus on and simply not enough time to appreciate my handiwork.

"Don't speak ill of the King!" Donald's voice quacked, sending a blizzard spell to a creature before him.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered before letting out a small shriek. Two Dusks had surrounded my backside and attacked relentlessly, tearing deep gashes into the skin of my back.

As I whipped around to take them out (in slight pain), an intense fire formed where they stood, burning my cheek. I let out another shriek, clutching my face in my hands, and when I saw the culprit of the fire my eyes narrowed, rage building up in the pit of my stomach.

"You!" I yelled, drawing my weapons again.

The redheaded man did not laugh or clap or seem particularly amused like the last time we had met. Instead his eyes were wide. "Look! I took Kairi, but she got away from me! Then she was kidnapped by a man named Saix. Got it memorized? Saix!"

"What are yo—"

"Akira!" Sora's voice sounded behind me, causing me to whip back around. We were surrounded on all sides by Dusks, overwhelmingly so. Donald and Goofy were completely wiped out, laying unconscious on the side of the battlefield.

My eyes widened. "Sora, I've got your back!" I yelled, running behind him and facing opposite him, my weapons drawn threateningly. Our backs touched together (which was somewhat painful for me), and I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see what Sora's condition was. His lip was bloody and busted, with two deep gashes reaching from his left cheek to his forehead. His arms were scratched and bruised and he breathed heavily, obviously winded.

"Here," I offered, sending a healing spell to him. His posture straightened instantly, but the pain he was in was still quite evident.

Axel charged to the front of us, spinning his fiery chakrams in his hands. "Ready to take these guys down?"

The green-eyed fiend did not wait for our response but simply jumped straight into the swarm, tossing his chakrams every which way. Sora glanced back at me, smiled, and charged into his section of the group, Keyblade in hand and a yell erupting from his chest.

Narrowing my eyes, and still with half a mind to turn my weapons on Axel, I leaped forward into the crowd, sending the largest blizzard spell I could possibly muster, effectively taking out six Dusks. There were exponentially more than six Dusks, though. There were hundreds of them, maybe even a thousands, and although these enemies weren't necessarily tough to take down, there were far too many for three people to handle. Plus, they were nearly as fast and stealthy as I was, so that didn't make our task of surviving any easier.

Their tendrils slashed into the exposed skin of my legs, on my arms, on my face. I fought forward, ignoring the burning pain in my face from being scorched with Axel's fire. My hook blades planted themselves in the skulls of Dusks, the pointy hilts jabbing at the ones that snuck up behind me. I dodged most of the attacks, rolling on the ground and jumping out of harm's way, sending various magic whenever I could. For the most part I was able to avoid being injured, but there were simply too many Nobodies to remain completely unharmed.

Worst of all, the swarm was not even thinning; for every one that I destroyed two more took its place, forming out of thin air to plague me. The amount of enemies was becoming overwhelming and I jumped backwards into the middle of our protective circle, sending aero spells every which way to hold them back. Sora had already retreated into the circle minutes ago, launching his Keyblade in random directions, only hitting a target every once in a while. He was exhausted and in worse shape than myself, so using the last bit of magic I could muster, I sent a strong cure spell to him. A couple cuts on his face healed and he seemed infinitely less fatigued, but there was no way he could charge back into the swarm; they were nearly upon us now.

Axel leaped into the circle with us, bruised and shredded to bits. He didn't seem to be ready to give up though, still firing his chakrams as if the fight had just begun. "There's too many!" he yelled, sending a large line of fire along the floor, zigzagging it to take out the optimum amount of Dusks.

His eyes met mine and he clenched his jaw. I probably looked much worse than I thought I did, but still I slashed at the various Nobodies that managed to get close enough. Then Axel looked to Sora, who looked almost ready to drop.

His green eyes moved in a frenzy and he yelled out, his face set in determination. "I think I liked it better when they were on my side."

Sora's weak voice sounded from behind me. "Feeling a little regret?" Even in fatigue he sounded chipper as ever.

"Nah. I can handle these punks. Check this out."

Then he jumped forward, twirling his chakrams in his hands. His coat glowed red hot as he engulfed himself in flames, making them grow bigger and bigger and bigger. The room became swelteringly hot and shielded my body with my arms, anticipating the hot flames on my skin.

Surprisingly, they never came. Instead the room was engulfed in bright orange light, blinding me and causing me to cover my eyes.

By the time I opened them back up and regained my vision, Axel was on the ground, the fire from his body extinguishing itself. There were no more Dusks around us, only the silence of the portal.

"Axel!" Sora yelled, stumbling over to Axel and kneeling over him. I staggered over there too, taking in the face of the man who had both tried to harm and help me. I had barely known him and yet he had risked his life for my friend and I and I clenched my teeth. Judging from what Sora told me, I could tell this guy was from the Organization, the exact people we were fighting. What was going on?

"You're… You're fading away!" Sora exclaimed. Surely enough, he was. Dark tendrils drifted up into the air, leaving Axel a sinking, despairing nothing. His body was disappearing into nothing, just like the Dusks.

"That's what happens when you put your whole being into an attack," Axel replied airily, almost uncaring. "You know what I mean?" Then he chuckled to himself, his lips forming into a pained smile. "Not that Nobodies actually _have _beings. Anyways, I digress. Go, please. Find Kairi."

His eyes shut for half a second before popping open again, a small tint of urgency in them. "Almost forgot. Sorry for what I did to her."

Sora's eyes searched frantically. I could tell he was panicking. "Well when we find her you can tell her that yourself."

I frowned to myself. I knew that wasn't going to happen; Axel was fading fast, his entire being slipping away into thin air. It seems that he had the same idea s me and he gave Sora a condescending half grin. "I think I'll pass. My heart wouldn't really be in it, y'know?" He let out a bark of a laugh, then coughed, his entire body (or, the rest of his body) heaving into it.

"Axel…" Sora's voice shook, and he seemed completely healed from his previous exhaustion and injuries. Donald and Goofy had revived themselves too and they stood quietly on the side, looking in at the scene. "What were you trying to do?"

The emerald eyed man smiled. "I was trying to see Roxas," he said matter-of-factly, a note of fondness entering his voice. "He was the only one I liked. He made me feel… like I had a heart." He paused, seeming to ponder something. "Funny… You make me feel the same." His entire being shook on the last syllable, his voice hitching. I could not tell if it was from pain or emotion.

As it turns out it didn't matter what it was from because Axel soon shook himself out of it, an urgent look clouding his face. "Kairi's in the castle dungeon. Go, save her!" His arm raised and flexed, a dark green portal forming in the distance ahead.

His body began to fade faster now, and he closed his eyes. "Also, Akira; sorry about scorching your face. We're cool, yeah?"

He was nearly gone now and I nodded furiously. "Yeah, yeah. We're fine. Don't worry about it."

A tiny smile lurked onto his lips, satisfied with tying up all his loose ends, and then his body turned fully into blackness and rose into the air.

"Axel…" Sora whispered weakly, holding his hands out where Axel had been. All that remained were his fiery chakrams, which were also beginning to disintegrate into nothing

Tearing my eyes away from the spot, I pulled softly on Sora's arm. I know he was hurting, but standing here and letting him mourn wouldn't help us. "Sora, c'mon. Let's get out of here."

He glanced up at me, his blue eyes glassy. Still, he nodded understandably, wiping his nose with his gloves. "Yeah…"

My mind wandered as the four of us made our way to the portal. I knew who Roxas was. Sora had given me the low down on pretty much everything so there wasn't too much I didn't understand. But Axel… What had been up with that guy?

Goofy glanced at us tentatively, a concerned look in his eyes. Concern for Sora. "Are you okay?" he asked kindly, resting a hand on Sora's shoulder.

Sora wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and nodded. "I'm fine. I'm fine. Just…" He glanced back to where Axel had been before wincing and turning back around. "He only took Kairi because he wanted his best friend back. It just… it's crazy. I don't know."

I bit the inside of my cheek. "In all fairness to him, I would do the same thing to get Riku or Kairi back. Maybe even worse." I shrugged, putting my hands in my jacket pockets. I was unsure if admitting that made me a bad person or not, but then I realized I didn't care. My friends were everything to me. I would do _anything _to get them back.

Donald turned on us next, walking some distance away from us. "Here," he quacked, waving his staff in the air. Heavy showers of cure rained down on Sora and I, solely healing the cuts and bruises that coated our body. I figured this was his way of sympathizing with us and I smiled at him, grateful for his kindness.

Sora sighed, still distraught by the death we had witnessed. We were in front of the portal now, a distinct solemn mood still lingering in the air like a cold."I guess… I guess we should go through it. Who knows how much longer the portal will stay open." He dashed through it, not waiting for a single one of us.

I sighed. Sora was a softie, always had been. Although he may not have known Axel well, he had still given up his life to protect us. That was enough to get the waterworks flowing and I rushed after him, going to comfort my friend even though every cell in my being told me it was a sour idea.

**Alright here's the deal: I realize Ansel isn't a KH character, but she was a character I used in a one shot. If you just go to my One-Shot compilations Drabbles, Drabbles, you should be able to find it (it should be like the first one).**

**But I warn you, read it at your own will because there is too much fluff. Too much.**


	7. Approaching the Castle

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own Kingdom Hearts or anything associating with it. However, it would be pretty rad to be buy the franchise. Yo Nomura, hit me up.

_"__Akira?"_

_My gaze shifted to Sora, who was sprawled out on my couch, staring straight up at the ceiling. "What?"_

_He bit his lip as if he were unsure of what he should say. I leaned forward in my armchair, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not a mind reader y'know. Can't really respond unless you give me something to respond to."_

_Sora frowned. "I'm just scared that you're gonna make fun of me."_

_"__I usually do," I deadpanned. "Now come on, spill it while I'm still concerned."_

_The blue eyed boy took a death breath and exhaled loudly, his brows furrowed. "Aren't you guys scared to go to another world?"_

_I gave him a look. "I'm not. Riku's not. I'm not too sure about Kairi, though. She seems like she's just coming along for the ride." I raised my eyebrows. "You're scared?"_

_He let out a deep sigh and refused to meet my gaze, his eyes latched to my plain white ceiling. "I… I don't know. I'm just…" He paused, and then smiled to himself. "You know what? Yeah. I'm scared."_

_I smiled at him too, even though he couldn't see it. "God, you're such a baby."_

_"__Hey!"_

_"__Joking." I rolled my eyes and leaned forward some more, nearly on the edge of my chair. "Why are you scared though? There's not much to be scared of."_

_Sora sat up from his laying position and crossed his ankle underneath him, playing with the ends of his gloves. "You don't ever think about what could happen to all of us?"_

_"__No, I don't, because I'm not a Negative Nelly."_

_He laughed quietly. "That's the understatement of the century."_

_I laughed too. "Yeah, yeah, I know. But for real, why are you scared?"_

_His serious face was back now and he breathed deep. "Like… What if something bad happens? What if we can't come back home?"_

_"__That doesn't sound like a bad thing to me," I murmured._

_"__Or what if we all—" He stopped himself, clenching his jaw._

_I raised an eyebrow. "What were you gonna say, Sora?"_

_For a moment he seemed hesitant, rubbing his hands together nervously. Finally he sighed loudly. "What if we grow apart out there? The four of us, I mean. What if we don't want to be friends after seeing what's out there because we think we found something better?"_

_At that, I burst into a fit of laughter. Sora made eye contact with me for the first time during this entire conversation, his face growing red. "Hey! Don't laugh at me! I'm being serious!"_

_"__It's just hilarious!" I choked out, gasping for air. "Oh my god, I can't breathe. That is too freaking funny."_

_"__It's a legitimate concern!"_

_My laughter began to subside, only tiny giggles escaping from my mouth. "You wanna know why that's so funny?"_

_His face was still a deep red. "Why?"_

_"__Because!" I exclaimed, giggling. "Do you really think Riku or I would be able to make friends? We're a mess!" I laughed some more before I continued. "You will literally never be able to get rid of us because we seriously just can't make other friends."_

_Sora's face brightened at the fact that we were socially impaired. "Yeah?"_

_"__Yeah."_

_Then he frowned. "But what about Kairi?"_

_I rolled my eyes. "Sora, she's your best friend. You seriously don't need to worry about your little girlfriend."_

_His eyes widened. "She's not my girlfriend!"_

_"__Yeah, yeah." I muttered, waving him off. "God, that was hilarious. I really needed a laugh."_

_Sora scrunched his nose. "You're the worst."_

_I laughed. "Yeah, well, you're officially stuck with the worst forever. So get used to it."_

_Sora's smile never faltered._

The portal led to a dark corner of an even darker city, wet and damp and teeming with ferocity. A shiver went up my spine when I arrived, and I clenched my teeth at the chill of the wind here. This place was awfully strange, that was for sure, but there was something that stuck out: the moon. It was large and yellow-white, much like any moon that had been on the Islands, but instead of being average and circular, it was humongous and heart-shaped. It illuminated even the darkest corners of the alley in a faint eerie glow, causing yet another chill to roll upon my skin.

Sora was standing casually, looking straight up at the moon, his entire body illuminated in white. Tentatively I approached him, nearly putting my hand on his shoulder then deciding against it. That would be rather out of character for me, and knowing Sora, he wouldn't want sympathy; he would want to be treated like an adult, like he wasn't a baby.

"Hey," I murmured, placing myself directly beside him. I pulled the aviator goggles off my face (they'd been on ever since we went through the beam of light to get to the alternate Twilight Town, which felt as though it had happened years ago) and hung them back around my neck.

"Hey," he responded, eyes still trained on the moon. My ears pricked to the sound of Donald and Goofy emerging from the portal but they did not approach us. They seemed to understand Sora needed a little bit of time to himself.

My eyes traveled up to the moon and my hands wandered into the pockets of my jacket. We stood like that for a while, just both of us staring at the abnormal moon, complete silence engulfing us. After a couple minutes I stole a glance to Sora. He seemed pretty okay—no tears, no watery eyes or trembling lips. He hardly even looked distraught anymore.

"You good?" I was not the best at comforting. That had usually been Kairi's job, being the motherly figure. I was the brutally honest sarcastic one that put you in your place whenever needed. Being, well, _helpful_ in more ways than kicking ass and making jokes was completely foreign to me, and it definitely showed.

Still, Sora glanced at me, a small smile forming on half his face. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. We have more important things to focus on anyways."

I returned his smile. "Yeah. Yeah, we do. Ready?"

Sora seemed much more put together about this than I would've expected. The boy I'd known from the Islands would be a blubbering mess right about now. Instead he was calm, cool, and collected and truthfully, I was quite impressed. The past year and a half had changed him.

"Ready." He smiled fully this time, resting his hands behind his head. "Say," he began, turning to face Donald and Goofy, "you guys seen the King again?"

"Nope!" Goofy responded cheerily, taking his place on the other side of Sora.

"We'll find him," Sora mused, a smile on his face. "We always do."

We exited the alley only to find ourselves in the middle of a plethora of alleys, each as dark and dreary as the last. Dark creatures attacked us (Sora said these were the Heartless he'd told me about, and were also the things that had taken the Islands away from us nearly two years ago) but we handled them with ease, sending magic their way and taking them out with lazy weapon slashes.

Everything was very simple; cut down the enemies, move on, cut down the enemies, move on. That is, until we got to the heart of the city.

Rising high into the air was the only source of light in the entire town other than the eerily large moon: a giant skyscraper, illuminated with various neon lights. Sora wandered a bit, moving closer and closer to the skyscraper until suddenly, without any sort of warning or explanation, he disappeared.

"Sora!" Donald yelled, running to where he had been standing. Goofy gasped loudly and I nearly dropped my hook blades. What in the world had just happened?

"Where… Where did he go?" Goofy asked, looking all around. He was absolutely nowhere to be seen.

"He just…disappeared," I whispered to myself, turning around in all directions to see if he was anywhere near.

Panic had just begun to settle in my chest when he reappeared, Keyblade in hand. Literally. Just reappeared out of thin air. He was breathing heavy, a couple scratches on his arms but nothing particularly serious.

"What the hell happened to you?!" I exclaimed, running up to him and wrapping him in a short-lived hug before shoving him back, a dull anger growing in my heart. "You completely vanished. Do you have any idea how worried we got about you?"

He looked bewildered. "I… disappeared? You didn't see that guy in the dark coat?"

My eyebrows shot up. "Sora, no one was here. You quite literally _vanished_ without warning."

Sora blinked hard, his Keyblade disappearing from his hand. "There was a guy who appeared here… I was fighting him…" He shook his head again as if to clear it. "Whatever. Whatever. We have to go. The castles right up ahead I think, and if it's not it has to be close. Axel said Kairi was in the dungeon, so we should try and get there fast."

I looked him over. He certainly seemed quite disheveled but something told me it was best not to ask. Whatever had happened was obviously not going to be told, so instead of pushing him for information, I waved a hand carelessly to send him a healing spell. His cuts faded away and I began to walk away. "C'mon, then. We shouldn't waste any more time. Who knows what—" I stopped. Sora had been through quite enough. Mentioning the endless possibilities of what could be happening to Kairi would only make things worse.

"Yeah," his grim voice sounded from behind me. He wasn't _completely_ stupid. He already knew the possibilities as well as I did.

We traveled on, walking through the dreariest alley yet for a short time before coming to a dark expanse of nothing. Across from the void was the giant, menacing looking castle, the unsettling moon hanging just above it. I whistled, taking in the sight.

There seemed to be absolutely no way to cross the empty chasm. Not until—

"Look!" Donald shrieked, pointing up to the castle. A bright, blinding white light flashed across the land, causing me to shield my eyes with my arm.

Sora ran forward, standing directly on the edge of solid ground. "That's gotta be Kairi!" he exclaimed before summoning his Keyblade and pointing it to where the light was. Another light emitted from the Keyblade, shooting across the dark canyon to the light in the castle. Then, almost like magic, a clear blue bridge formed. It looked like ice and I tested it with the tip of my hi-tops, extremely suspicious of whether or not it would be able to hold our weight.

Before I could even give the okay, Sora, Donald and Goofy were bounding across the bridge, nearly knocking me over. "C'mon, Akira!" Sora's yelled from ahead, running faster and faster.

Rolling my eyes, I put my hook blades in the straps on my back and chased after them, preparing myself for whatever we were about to encounter.

Because heaven knows whatever it would be, it wasn't going to be good.

The inside of the castle was just as unsettling as the outside; white, cold, and filled with nothing. The platforms we walked on floated over thin air, which was unsettling in itself. As I walked to the edge of the white platform and looked down, I sent a small, tiny flame into the deep dark. It traveled down, down, down, but never extinguished; it only traveled deep out of sight and I snickered. Mental note: don't freaking fall off the platforms because as far as I could tell, there was no bottom.

"Don't fall off the platforms," I said matter-of-factly, still staring deep into the abyss. My toes hung off the edge of the platform, wiggling against the darkness. "If you do, you're screwed. Just a warning."

"How wise," Donald mused sarcastically and I rolled my eyes, my fingers fiddling with the silver piercing in my right eyebrow.

"Um… Maybe you shouldn't stand so close," Sora noted, tugging politely on my arm. I acknowledged that yes, that was probably true, and took a few steps back.

I pushed back the long bangs that had fallen out of my braid. "Let's get moving. This is a big castle; who knows how long it'll take to find her."

And with that, we began walking, and we had barely moved on to the next platform when five Nobodies popped out, flying majestically in the air and wielding holographic pink blocks.

"Sorcerers!" Goody yelped, holding up his shield to block a cube that had come flying at him.

"Look out!" Sora screamed at me, but I had already rolled out of the way. Two Sorcerers had sent pillars of cubes my way, but I was fast, much faster than they were.

I jumped up behind them, hook blades unlatched from my back, giving them each double slashes in quick succession. They did not burst into nothing and I propelled myself backwards to avoid oncoming attacks. "Tougher than Dusks?" I yelled to Sora, sending two lightning spells to one of the ones I had attacked. It burst into white tendrils that floated into the air—finally.

"Tougher than Dusks," Sora confirmed, jumping into the air only to slam a Sorcerer onto the ground.

A sly half-smile crept itself onto my face. "Good," I purred.

I then ran forward at full speed, dragging the tips of my hook blades along the ground, causing hot sparks and an awful metallic sound to ring in the air. With a grunt, I launched into the air, twirling my hook blades in quick succession. They rammed into the Sorcerer repeatedly, not stopping until the Nobody dissolved into absolutely nothing.

I landed on the floor, crouched down with my hands out in front of me. My eyes scanned the platform; there were no more to be seen.

Sora twirled his Keyblade proudly, a grin forming on his face. "We sure showed them, amiright?"

Standing fully, I scoffed. "Right. _We_."

He looked quite offended, placing a hand over his chest as if he had been hurt. "Hey! That's not—"

"Joking, kid," I laughed, wiping my overall-shorts with gloved hands. "Your first mistake was taking me seriously. But don't worry," I patted his spikes condescendingly and he grimaced, obviously annoyed, and swatted my hand away. "You're not the first person to do so. So you're obviously not the _only_ idiot in the world."

Once again, Sora looked like he had been slapped. But I gave him a grin and a cheeky laugh and his lips turned upwards into a smile, realizing once again I was just kidding. "Geez, you're a pain."

My shoulders rose and slumped back down. "A pain that won't go away kid, so get used to it."

He rolled his eyes and began to stroll to the next platform, the one that held the entranceway to the next room. "I can't believe that I had actually missed you."

Laughter erupted from my chest and I ran forward, pushing him to the side. He stumbled, almost falling, but I ran on. I only turned around when I reached the entranceway, my hand on my hip. "Yeah, well now that you remember how annoying I am, you won't have to miss me. Now hurry up, slow poke! We have a damsel in distress to rescue!"

**so school and work have been kicking my ass. college classes and working 5 nights a week and trying to pay a car note are pretty difficult, not to mention writing and photography and everything else. so, this is late. i'm really sorry!**


	8. Encounters

**DISCLAIMER****: **I own KH even less than I own a PS4. Which is not at all. Oh, the woes of being a broke high school student!

_My bare feet hung off of the pier, swinging in time with the tiny waves that rolled along the surface. My toes barely grazed the water and I sighed, leaning my head back to bask in the island sunset. It was very rare that there was a moment of silence on this island; after all, this was the place where we all hung out at. Even though I was a sucker for chaos, it was refreshing to have just a moment to myself, a moment of peace and quiet._

_It would've been much more peaceful though, if there hadn't been two electric blue eyes less than a centimeter away from mine when I leaned back._

_"__Boo," he said calmly._

_I however, was not so calm. With a shriek that I didn't even know I could emit, I jumped up in fright. Jumping in fright is probably not the best thing to do when you're sitting on the edge of a pier though, so before I had even registered what had happened, I had already toppled into the clear blue ocean beneath me._

_My head resurfaced and I narrowed my eyes, annoyed. "Riku! What the hell?!"_

_He didn't even hear me; he was doubled over in laughter, holding his stomach. "Oh my God! That turned out so much better than I thought it would!"_

_"__Riku, you ass! Why would you do that?!"_

_"__Oh my God!" he repeated, actually falling over as if his laughter were too much to bear. "That was seriously the best possible thing that could've happened. I'm gonna pass out. I'm gonna die!"_

_I splashed water at him roughly. It barely reached him, but still, I splashed him more. "Damn straight you're gonna die! Because I'm going to annihilate you! Now give me a hand so I can get out of this water and kick your ass."_

_Riku put his hands up defensively, his body still convulsing with laughter. "Okay, okay! I'm sorry. Here," he chuckled, thrusting his hand out to me. Annoyed, I took it, pulling myself back up onto the pier._

_Sitting cross-legged on the pier, I pulled out my braid, taking my extremely long hair in my hands. "You're seriously my least favorite person in the world. I literally despise you at this point in time," I dead-panned, wringing out the sea from my hair. Seaweed was tangled in it and I stuck out my tongue in disgust._

_Still giggling, Riku sat down next to me, making sure not to rub up against me in fear of getting wet. "That seriously was an accident though. Even though it was probably the greatest thing I've ever done in my entire life, I'm sorry. Truce?" _

_He held out his hand for me to shake and I wrinkled my nose at him. "You're kidding me, right? You seriously think I won't get you back for that?"_

_A giant grin spread across his face. "I was hoping."_

_I whipped my hair to my other shoulder, purposefully smacking him in the face with it ("Hey!" he complained, swatting away the wet strands that stuck to his face.) "Nah. You know me better than that."_

_"__Sadly," he joked, shoving me a little. _

_Rolling my eyes, I shoved him back. "Okay then, smart aleck, why are you here to disturb me anyways? Was your only goal to get me soaked and annoyed? Because if it was, you've achieved it. Congrats."_

_He hiked up a leg, settling it firmly on the pier, letting the other one hang down to the water. "Nope. That was just pure luck on my part. Geez, I wish I'd had a camera. Your face was priceless!"_

_I peeled my jacket from my body, hoping that my white crew neck and overall-shorts would dry faster if there wasn't a giant military coat over it. "I could seriously strangle you right now. I swear, if you hadn't just had a birthday, your life would be over. Like, right now."_

_Riku chuckled. "Well, thank God for 15__th__ birthdays, then. You'd destroy me. Obviously."_

_"__Obviously," I repeated, giving him a threatening look. He returned it, and we held it for as long as we could before bursting into a fit of giggles._

_After the laughter died down I pulled my legs more into my body, resting my wrists on my crossed ankles. "Seriously, though. Why are you here?"_

_He mocked being offended, a hand on his chest. "What, you don't want me here?"_

_I rolled my eyes. "No, I don't. But you're here anyways, so I don't have much of a choice."_

_Riku chuckled, turning his eyes to the setting sun. "You're a literal ray of sunshine, aren't you? Never change, Akira. Never change."_

_"__I try," I murmured, squinting my eyes at him. The sunset made his eyes look emerald green. "For real this time, okay? Why did you show up here?"_

_Seriousness took place of his lighthearted smile. He took a deep breath, his eyes still trained on the sun. "I wanted to talk to you about the raft."_

_Suddenly, I became serious, too. "What about it? Did something happen to it, or…?"_

_He shook his head, silver hair shaking on his shoulders. "No, no. It's fine. Almost complete, actually. In fact, we'll probably be setting sail within the next three days or so."_

_I cocked my head. "What's the problem, then?"_

_Riku sighed, closing his eyes. "I was thinking about something."_

_He paused and I made a face. "Go on."_

_He sighed again. "What if you and I took the raft by ourselves?"_

_I raised my eyebrows. "What?"_

_Riku opened his eyes, refusing to meet my hard gaze. "Don't you ever get the feeling that Sora and Kairi don't really care about leaving? I mean, they seem pretty satisfied to be here."_

_I thought for a second, but he continued before I got the chance to respond. "I know for a fact that you want to leave this hellhole just as bad as I do, if not more. So, why don't we just go by ourselves? We both know that Sora and Kairi will be perfectly happy here, and we also know that we won't be happy until we've escaped these damn Islands."_

_My eyes searched his face, looking for any sign of a joke. There was none. "Riku…"_

_"__Akira, I can't wait anymore." His voice was strained, like it physically pained him to be sitting here under palm trees and summer clouds. "This isn't the way I want to live, and I know damn well you can't live like this either."_

_The empathetic part of me was telling me that abandoning our friends was an awful idea, that it would be the worst betrayal. They would hate us, they would never forgive us and worst, they would get over us, moving on with their lives and forgetting we had even existed. _

_But then my thudding heart interrupted. Riku had a point; Sora and Kairi were hardly interested in getting away from here at all. To them it was just a fun adventure; for Riku and I, it was a matter of finding happiness. And deep in my soul, I knew that I would not be able to handle exploring the worlds with people who weren't as committed as I was. As _we_ were._

_Air filled my lungs completely and I held it in, wondering if what I was about to say was the right thing. Letting it out, I made sure my words were not rushed. Quiet, deliberate and meaningful. "You're right, Riku. You're right."_

_For the first time since this conversation started, Riku's eyes met mine, a newfound hope in them. "Really?"_

_"__Yeah. Yeah, you are. As much as it sucks to admit, you are." Now, it didn't suck because he was right; it sucked because he was _right_. His rightness meant that betraying our friends was no longer an option, but something that had to be done. And I hated myself for it._

_His eyes searched mine, scanning my face. He knew what I had meant and did not pretend to be offended. "Yeah," he agreed, his deep voice low. "I know it does. But it's the only thing we can do."_

_I sighed, slightly upset, and tugged at the ends of my hair. Nearly yanking the hair out of my head had been a frustrated habit of mine ever since I was young; it was a wonder I was not completely bald. "What are we gonna do?"_

_Riku pursed his lips, almost seeming to regret what he was about to say. Almost. "The day we finish the raft—which will be soon—we need to meet here. Early in the morning, before the sun rises. We'll meet here, gather some provisions, and set sail. We can't tell a soul. Not our parents, not our teachers, not Tidus or Wakka or Selphie. Nobody."_

_My mind raced. Fear and excitement filled my bones, but there was a feeling even more prominent than the rest: guilt. "I think we should leave a note for them at least. Once they see that the raft is gone they'll come to our houses looking for us. You know, to be good friends and let us know that it disappeared." My fingers wandered to the piercing in my nose, the one I've had since I was 13. Even having this piercing made me feel guilty now; Kairi hated it with a passion, but Sora had always expressed his admiration of it. "I don't want to leave them hanging. It would be cruel."_

_Sure. Like what we were doing wasn't cruel enough._

_Still, Riku nodded, eyes still glued to mine. If he felt at all distressed his face did not show it. "You're right. They at least deserve an explanation, right?"_

_I nodded. "They do." I paused, searching for words to use. "They're good friends. They deserve better."_

_Riku sighed as I turned to face the sunset. This would be one of the last Island sunsets I would ever see, and while the thought excited me greatly, not sharing the many sunsets to come with my friends hurt. He watched me carefully to see if I was going to cry, but of course there were no tears. I had only ever cried in front of him once; we did not speak of it, ever. Plus, I did not have the right to cry. If we did this, it would be my fault; I was not allowed to be distraught. It would be an insult to Sora and Kairi. _

_"__I know," he murmured. I could feel his eyes on my face, watching me stare blankly into the sunset._

_His hand covered mine reassuringly, patting it like a best friend would. I still did not look to him, and he murmured once more._

_"__I know they deserve better, Akira. But we do, too."_

There were many more rooms ahead, each containing Sorcerers and their blocks. They were easy to take out; I hardly received a single bruise from them and only once had to cure someone (that someone being Goofy). The four of us were a good team; Sora and his boldness, Donald and his magic, Goofy with his strength, and me with my speed and strategy. It seemed like there was nothing we couldn't handle.

Yeah. That was a nice thought while it lasted.

Soon we entered a large gray room with a dark blue floor (still a platform. You have no idea how many times we'd almost fallen off of these things while fighting), a big, gray, two-story balcony hanging above the next doorway.

"Kairi!" Sora yelled, cupping his mouth with his hands. His voice echoed through the empty room and I yanked him by the arm, cramming my gloved hand over his mouth.

"Are you insane?!" I whisper-yelled, shaking him. "This is the Organization's stronghold. Unless you want those creepy coat dudes to find us, don't yell at the top of your damn lungs!"

As it turns out, I was wrong. Creepy coat dudes were not the things to ambush us. Instead, thousands of Shadow Heartless appeared out of nowhere. Surfacing from the walls of the room, from the floor, from the ceiling. They surrounded us fully and disintegrated into the floor, advancing even closer.

Grimacing, I pulled out my hook blades. "I told you! I _told_ you! You can't just scream in giant creepy castles!"

Sora's hand emitted with light and soon he was wielding his Keyblade. He was in defensive stance, ready to pounce when he stopped.

A voice from above had called.

"Sora!" a familiar voice rang out.

My head whipped around and I allowed my eyes to travel upwards. A grin of glee broke out on my face at the sight of my dear friend.

"Sora! It's really you!" Kairi cried, leaning against the top level of the balcony.

"Kairi!" Sora exclaimed joyfully, but he had been distracted for too long. A swarm of Heartless pounced on him, dragging him to the ground.

Sadly I had been distracted by Kairi as well, and I earned a forceful shove to the ground by a couple Shadows. However I was swift and graceful and I dodge rolled as I fell, landing upright on my feet. Getting ready to charge at the various Heartless around me, I saw Kairi leap off the second story of the balcony. My heart nearly stopped, but she landed safely on the lower level, and then was out of sight.

"Get off!" Sora muttered, shaking off the various Heartless that had pinned him down. They flew backwards and he regained his footing, taking up a defensive stance.

I fought half-heartedly, my gaze staying on Kairi. She was back in my field of vision now, wielding what looked like to be a pink and yellow Keyblade. She fought quite impressively, actually, taking out Heartless left and right.

There was something quite strange, though. Fighting next to her was a tall, dark-skinned man with long silver hair and a black coat. He seemed outrageously familiar, but I couldn't place my finger on where I had seen him before. But there was something that was definite; I _had_ seen him before.

Then suddenly, thin pink arrows appeared out of nowhere, raining down on us and taking out each and every Heartless in the room. The one I had been pummeling with aero spells was obliterated by the blade, disintegrating in an instant.

"Wha—" I gasped, my eyes searching for where the shooter was.

"Have you been a good boy?" a deep, sarcastic voice said from somewhere I could not see.

Sora clenched his fists. "Show yourself!"

Up on the second floor of the balcony a dark portal appeared, and out of it stepped an older looking man in a dark coat. Organization member.

"Oh," he muttered, crossing his arms. "Sounds like you haven't."

I took in the sight of him, squinting to see his features. He had long salt and pepper hair that was tied into a ponytail down his back. A black eye patch covered his left eye, and even from the large distance between us, I could see a long, thick scar reaching from his jaw line to right below his right eye.

He uncrossed his arms. "Well Roxas, we haven't got much need for you anymore, buddy. Take a look at Kingdom Hearts; it's completed." He pointed to the windows of the room and I looked up. As it turns out, the giant eerie moon had a name: Kingdom Hearts. Sora had told me what it was while we were still in Twilight Town, so I knew that this was a very serious matter.

I raised my eyebrows. "Roxas?"

Sora seemed equally as confused. "Did he just call me Roxas?" he asked me, and I nodded, still unsure of what was happening.

The eye patched guy continued. "You know, you've really put Organization XIII in a pickle. Probably why the Keyblade chose you in the first place. But _man_, did it choose a dud this time." His voice was smooth and careless, and he even sounded a bit like me. "Hell, you're not _half_ the hero the other guys were."

Sora didn't seem at all offended; however, he seemed both annoyed and prepared for battle. "Are you done rambling?"

Salt & Pepper scoffed, a hand on his hip. "Rambling? As if. All I'm trying to tell you, traitor, is that your time is _up_."

Before I could even begin to wonder about what had just happened (traitor? What had Sora done to be branded a traitor?) Salt & Pepper leapt down from the balcony, twin arrowgun rifles in his hands. He landed in front of us and now that he was closer, I could appreciate the true creepiness that he held. His eyes were an unnerving gold and I tried my hardest not to meet them.

A smile formed on his face (well, half his face. The half with the scar would not move) and he twisted his weapons in his hands. "Let's have a little fun, shall we?" he grinned, before disappearing completely.

"Wha—Where the hell did he go?!" I yelled, but the yell soon turned into a shriek of pain. He had warped over to the other side of the platform and was hanging upside down comfortably, slinging his arrows at us. He had fired at me unexpectedly and damn, he got me good. Now, as a souvenir, I had a giant piece of flesh torn out of my right arm where his arrow had injured me. It was horrid; blood gushed out of the wound in rivers, dripping down my arm and to my hands, falling through my fingers to the floor.

Instead of freaking out, I narrowed my eyes. "Is that he best you've got?!" I called out, racing to where he hung. The tips of my hook blades dragged along the ground and I jumped underneath him, slamming my weapons into his body full-force.

He grunted and then was gone, teleported to another part of the platform. "You little _freak_!" he laughed casually, but the laughing soon stopped. Sora and Donald had been anticipating Salt & Pepper's movement and barreled into him. Sora slashed at him mercilessly while Donald cast countless blizzard spells on him, yelling like a maniac.

Salt & Pepper fired pink arrows all around and I (luckily) dodged rolled out of the way, regaining my footing to sprint in his direction. Not so lucky for Sora, he was struck in the leg; grazed, really. A small trickle of blood pooled where he had been hit, but he continued on, smashing Eye Patch every opportunity he could.

Once again he warped to the other side of the platform, stopping for a second to reload his weapons. I smiled. Although he was deadly, his reload time was slow. That was where we'd win.

"Get him! NOW!" I screamed, sending the strongest lightning spell I could formulate to him. My right arm began to feel numb; I looked down. Wow. I'd lost _a lot_ of blood.

Still, I raced to S&P, attacking him from behind. "Hey Donald, sent me a healing spell, would ya? I'm kinda starting to lose feeling in my arm."

Donald did as I had requested and I began to attack with a newfound vigor. Goofy pummeled into him, knocking him in the shield whenever he could. Sora stood in various places on the battlefield, waiting for S&P to teleport there. Donald healed us and sent devastating magical blows to Eye Patch, causing him to stumble in his flight. And then there was me, sprinting and leaping across the platform like a maniac, doing my best to keep up with where he warped to. I was extremely fast, don't get me wrong; but being as fast as a guy who can _teleport_ is insanely difficult.

Eventually, I began to run out of breath. I'd been running around for such a long time my legs hurt. I'd been injured again, a giant gash on my cheek, blood pouring down my face and into my mouth and quite frankly, I was done playing his little game.

Furious, I charged him once again, leaping to the other side of the platform. "That's enough!" I screamed, slashing him multiple times in quick succession.

Then, it seemed as if the world had stopped. Everything felt slow and quiet, and as I fell back to the floor, S&P sank down to the floor, kneeling. Dark black nothings floated around him and euphoria flooded through my brain. I'd done it.

Sora ran to stand next to me, Keyblade out. He pointed it directly in Eye Patch's face, mere inches away.

"Why'd you call me Roxas?" he inquired, his voice sounding the slightest bit angry. Blood covered his arms where he had been grazed multiple times and he seemed a lot tougher than I remembered him to be.

Instead of answering, S&P let out a bark of a laugh then coughed, still laughing as he spoke. "Wouldn't _you_ like to know," he scoffed.

And with that he disintegrated into nothing.

Silence filled the room and Sora let out an irritated groan, allowing his Keyblade to disappear from his hand. "Xigbar. One of the Organization's members."

I raised an eyebrow at him. Even his face was covered in blood. Sure, mine was too, but it was awfully strange to see the boy I'd treated as a baby for so long to look so… _deadly_. "I gathered," I murmured, strapping my hook blades onto my back.

Goofy grabbed Sora by the shoulder then, looking him over. "Sora, we gotta go get Kairi! Let's get outta here. Fast!"

Determination filled his eyes. "Got it," he said, just beginning to run off.

"Ah-ah-ah!" I cooed, causing him to turn around, looking absolutely puzzled.

He cocked his head. "What?"

I rolled my eyes. "You really wanna go see Kairi for the first time in _nearly two years _looking like _that_?" I motioned to his bloody cuts and bruises and he blushed sheepishly. "Here," I said, waving a hand carelessly to send him magic. "You're healed and looking spiffy as ever. Now go see your girl."

"Not my girl," he said, but his excited tone (and the fact he was already bounding away from me) told me otherwise. I smiled, shaking my head. Love was weird, and I did not care to wrap my head around it. But still, after healing myself and our animal-like companions, I bounded after him, filled with excitement to see the girl I had lost.

We excited the room, sprinting full speed. There were ramps we had to go up filled with various types of Nobodies (Sora said they were Berserkers, Samurais, Creepers and Dancers. Right. Like I'd remember all of that), but we took them out with ease, fighting particularly hard. There was no time to waste; our friend was near.

Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, we reached the top of the ramps. Sora ran ahead, eager to see Kairi. I followed close behind, preparing a million apologies for losing her. In truth, I had never been the best at apologies; but this would be an exception.

When we arrived on the balcony, Kairi and the man with the silver hair were facing away from us, taking out the last of the Shadows that threatened them. The male lunged forward, obliterating three at once and I cocked my head. The way he fought… It was nostalgic to see. Kairi defeated the last one, swinging at it as hard as she could. She lacked finesse or training, but whacking the shit out of them with a pink Keyblade was something she could handle.

She was breathing heavy—I could see that, even from behind, and Sora gasped. He had probably forgotten how beautiful she was.

"You were great," he said, and Kairi whipped around, her eyes wide.

They gravitated towards each other, feet drifting closer and closer. They refused to break eye contact. "You and Riku never came home, so we came looking for you," Kairi said. She almost looked hurt.

Sora looked ashamed; he opened his mouth to defend himself but then stopped, casting his eyes downward. "I'm… I'm sorry. I just—"

He was cut off, for Kairi had thrown herself against him in a tight hug. I looked away. This was their moment; I did not have the right to intrude.

My eyes wandered over to the silver-haired man. He watched the scene, a small smile on his face, but when he saw me looking at him he turned away and began to walk off.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, running to catch up to him. Sora and Kairi did not notice what was happening. They were in their own special world.

The man formed a dark portal and he walked briskly towards it. I tried again. "Hey! Stop!" I ran faster, reaching a hand out to grab him. "I need to talk to you!"

I grabbed him by the crook of his arm and he turned his head, hardly facing me. "Who are you?" I demanded, trying to stay quiet. I did not want to disturb my friends' reunion. "I know you from somewhere."

"I'm no one," his deep voice said. He seemed somewhat worried to be speaking to me. "Just a castaway from the darkness. There's no way you could know me."

I examined him carefully, keeping my hold on his arm firm. His face… I had seen it before.

Then it hit me. This was the man in Namine's drawing. The memory that had yet to happen.

"No, I do! I know you!" I insisted. "You're a memory that a girl told me about. I know you!"

He tried to shake me off but my fingers were latched into his coat. There was no way he could escape. "You're mistaken. No one could have memories of me, you especially. I am nobody."

I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. "No, no, I know you," I insisted, practically shaking his arm off.

Then I stopped.

Even though my eyes were closed, my vision had never been clearer. My sight faded in, becoming clearer and clearer, and soon I knew exactly who stood before me.

Unmistakable silver hair, longer than I remembered it to be. Black blindfold covering the sea foam blue-green eyes I had grown up with. I gasped.

"Riku?"

Then I pulled him into a hug, long and hard. He hesitated, his hands hovering over my back before resting them there comfortably, pulling me towards him with ferocity. The familiar feeling of his arms and chest and back and shoulders made me pull him in closer.

My best friend was back.

I was close to tears. "Namine was right. She was right. I'm so happy she was right about this memory," I whispered to myself, sniffling back sobs. I refused to cry. No tears allowed.

"Akira…" he murmured, chin resting on my head. When had he gotten so huge? "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"You never came back," I whispered into his shoulder, suddenly beginning to grow angry. "It's almost been two years and you never came back."

"I know, I know," he whispered back, obviously knowing that I was getting upset. His voice was not dark and deep anymore; he sounded like, well, _Riku_. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry."

I held him tighter. "Don't you dare ever do something like this again. Don't you _dare_." My voice was harsh and raspy from holding back sobs, cracking on a few syllables.

"Um… Akira?" Sora's voice sounded from behind me, very obviously confused. I pulled away from Riku, a mixture of anger and joy and sadness running through my body all at once.

He still held Kairi loosely, as if they had just pulled back from their hug. "What are you doing? That guy… That's Ansem. Or uh, Xehanort's Heartless."

I glanced back at Riku. With eyes open, he looked just as he had been; dark skin, golden eyes, menacing facial features. Nothing made sense.

My eyes met Kairi's. She nodded to me, signaling she knew who this was, too. "No, Sora," I said out loud, clearing my throat so it wouldn't hitch anymore. "It's not."

His eyes flooded with confusion and I held out my hand, motioning for him to take it. "C'mere. Please. You'll understand."

Tentatively, Sora walked forward and took my hand. I forcefully grabbed Riku's and place them on top of each other, biting my lip. Sora looked tense. "Close your eyes."

He raised his eyebrows, obviously cautious. "Please," I murmured, gripping their hands in my own. "Please, just trust me." Sora glanced back to Kairi, who was standing a little ways behind him. She nodded reassuringly and he furrowed his eyebrows before closing his eyes.

I held their hands like that for a second. Two. Three. Four. Five. Then finally, after ten seconds, Sora's eyes fluttered open, tears brimming his lids. "Riku," he breathed, his legs shaking. "It's Riku. Riku's here."

Overcome with emotion and tears, Sora sank to his knees, face down. He still held Riku's hand firmly in both of his. "I looked for you!"

Riku looked down on him solemnly. "C'mon, Sora. You've got to keep it together."

"I looked everywhere for you!" Sora cried, sobs wracking his entire body. "I searched for you for months!"

"I didn't want you to find me," Riku stated simply, and Sora looked up. His sobbing had subsided, but tears still ran freely down his face, making his blue eyes red and puffy. Riku gripped Sora's hands, pulling him back up to his feet.

Sora stayed silent and I pushed forward. "Why didn't you let us know you were okay?" A note of anger rang in my voice, but it was a secondary emotion, an emotion to cover up the concern that was racing through my body.

He looked away, ashamed. "I told you. I didn't want to be found. Not like this." He raised his hands, looking at them. "I couldn't let you guys see me in this body…I couldn't. It's too much shame." He took a deep breath, refusing to meet anyone's gaze. "Xehanort's Heartless invaded my heart and I won… But in order to wield the power of darkness, I had to become Ansem myself."

Sora wiped his face off with his gloves, still leaving it tear streaked. I closed in on Riku. "So there's no way for you to change back?"

That's when a small smile formed on his face and he looked over the whole group; even acknowledging Donald and Goofy who hung way back, fearful of interrupting. "This battle isn't over. And until it is, I still need to use darkness."

The brunet boy formed a grin on his face, which was a great contrast to the wet sparkles that still hung in his lashes. "Well, let's finish it then! You're still Riku, no matter what you look like. All that matters is finding the King and ending this once and for all."

Riku glanced around the group. Everyone was nodding their heads in agreement; all except for me. I met his gaze and stared him down, allowing a small smile to form on half my face.

A half-smile crept to his lips.

"Sounds like a plan."

**shit writing from a shit author holla. uploading two tonight since I haven't uploaded in two months. oops.**


	9. The Grave Room

**DISCLAIMER:** Kingdom Hearts isn't mine. Also, I am not a human. Just a simple centipede trying to mosey through the day. Pay no mind.

* * *

Sora and Riku walked ahead of us, talking loudly to one another to catch up. Every once in a while Sora would look up at our silver-haired friend, still seeming as though he couldn't actually believe that Riku was here in the flesh. Then a large grin would spread across his face, showing that he had no need to worry anymore. Riku was here to stay.

Kairi and I lingered behind, walking slowly and watching our friends. A smile formed on her face. "Crazy week, yeah?"

My eyes met hers and I laughed lightheartedly. "I'll say." Then I bit the inside of my cheek. I still had an apology to give. "Hey… Listen, I don't know how you got here or what happened to you after Axel tried to kidnap us on the Islands… But I—I just… Look, I just didn't mean to—"

"Akira," Kairi interrupted, putting a hand on my shoulder. We stopped walking and she looked at me sternly. "You're not seriously trying to apologize, are you?"

I shrugged. "I would've tried to get here sooner, but I was knocked out for a while. I took a really bad fall and I thought you might've been hurt or—"

"You're rambling," she interrupted again, shaking her head. "Just say what you need to say."

Sighing, I fiddled mindlessly with the piercing in my eyebrow. "Look, I was just worried about you. I didn't know what happened to you and I felt bad for leaving you alone in an unknown world. Especially after that whole thing with Axel."

She scoffed, letting go of my shoulder and beginning to walk again. I strolled next to her, my eyes locked on her face. "What, like I can't take care of myself? Besides, there was seriously nothing you could do to prevent anything that's happened. It's not your fault. Plus, you're here now."

A small smile crept onto half my face. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right." I paused, wondering if I should say what was on my mind, and then continued. "You know, a girl told me this would happen. Well, kind of told me."

"Hm? Who?"

I shrugged. "A girl I met in Twilight Town. Namine. She told me that we'd find Riku. She didn't tell me _directly_, but she knew it would happen."

She smiled. "I know Namine, too. She's a good person, I think." We walked slowly, feet dragging and she glanced at me. "You know, you got kinda teary-eyed back there. You okay?"

I scoffed. "I was _not_ teary eyed."

"Yeah, sure," she said dismissively, waving it off as if she had never even made the suggestion. "I was just being a good friend and checking on you. Whatever."

Rolling my eyes, I poked her in the arm. "I'm fine. I just didn't realize how much I missed him until he was actually, you know, _right_ in front of me. Literally."

"Mhmm," she murmured, obviously thinking there was more to it. "I think that you're just a big softie and don't want to admit it. But that's fine. Keep up the charade."

My eyes flicked to Riku and Sora, who were shoving each other playfully. "The bromance has been resumed, huh?" I joked, trying to change the subject.

Kairi complied and laughed, high and tinkling. "I swear, they might as well date each other."

"Maybe you should make sure Riku doesn't move in on your man," I murmured playfully, examining my nails.

"Hey! Not my man!" Kairi insisted, scowling. Still, her cheeks were bright red.

"He sure as hell won't be if you don't get those two apart," I sang, darting away before Kairi could protest in that shrill way she had. Chuckling to myself, I grabbed Riku by the crook of his arm, pulling him away from Sora. "I'm gonna steal you for a bit, yeah?"

Sora's eyebrows furrowed, but Riku was smiling, showing he didn't mind at all. "Um…" Sora began.

"Thanks, bye!" I said, pulling Riku by his arm. Before we entered the next room, I glanced back to Kairi who did not seem at all amused. To push her a bit more, I mouthed '_you're welcome_' at her and she became even more scowly.

Laughing, I yanked Riku into the next room which was illuminated by two grave-type things. Creepy.

"What's this about?" he questioned, a small smile on his lips.

"The lovebirds haven't seen each other in nearly two years. Gotta give 'em some time alone, you know?"

He rolled his eyes too. "Geez, they _still _have a thing for each other? After that long apart?"

I scoffed. "Did you not just witness the disgustingly affectionate hug they just gave each other like, five minutes ago? Because I did, and they were com-_pletely_ in love." Smiling, I placed my hands in my jacket pockets. "It made me want to vomit."

He laughed lightheartedly. "Still a cold, heartless wench, I see."

I gave him a mock curtsey. "Don't ever expect anything less from me." Then I straightened myself, smiling. "Okay, you know this question was inevitable, so I'm gonna go ahead and ask it." He raised an eyebrow and I continued. "What has it been like to see other worlds?"

Riku scratched the back of his head, looking suddenly ashamed. "Given the circumstances, it could've been more, y'know, lighthearted."

I shrugged. Of course I knew what he meant. Kairi had told me all about how Riku had been taken over by the darkness. I wasn't stupid. But still, I smiled. "Psh, whatever. Shit happens. But for real, what was it like to see literally _everything_?"

He raised his eyebrows, seeming a bit taken aback by my casualness. He was very obviously ashamed of everything that had happened. "You're serious?"

"Um…Yeah," I said, my voice having a very distinct 'duh' tone. "You're still you no matter what went down in the past. So, spill it. I want you to rub it in my face about how great it was."

A grin slowly made its way to his face and he sighed, relieved that I didn't think of him differently. "Okay, I gotta be honest. It was so great. There are so many_ places_ out there! There are so many interesting people, too, with their own lives and dreams. It's just…" He paused, letting out a breath. "Just, wow."

I grinned back at him, shoving his shoulder playfully. "Congrats. You've succeeded in making me jealous. Hooray to you."

He smiled at me fondly, opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by the echoing footsteps of Kairi and Sora. They had finished talking or hugging or…whatever, and were coming to rejoin us.

"If you guys are bickering already, I'm going to scream," Kairi said as she entered the room, Sora right next to her.

Sora groaned. "Geez, I almost forgot about that. _Everything _is a competition with you two."

I rolled my eyes, placing my hands on my hips. "Oh my god, calm down. We were just catching up. Y'know, kind of like you guys were doing." I wiggled my eyebrows subtly and Kairi blushed furiously, a frown plastered on her face.

"What is this place?" Sora questioned, seemingly not noticing Kairi's red face. He took a few steps forward, his eyes scanning the room. "Some kind of… Graveyard?"

"Looks like it," Donald quacked, causing me to jump. I hadn't even realized he and Goofy were in the room.

Hands in my pockets, I moseyed to the 'grave' on the left. It illuminated a weird blue light, almost shimmering. "I think…" I began, cocking my head. "I think they're portals."

"You think so?" Sora questioned, moving to stand next to me.

Moving hair out of my face, I shrugged. "Only one way to find out," I said carelessly before thrusting my entire body into the deep, deep blue.

As usual, I was correct. The grave _was_ a portal, leading to a giant open space on one of the upper stories of the castle. The place was huge; wind whipped at my cheeks fiercely, causing my long braid to smack me in the face multiple times.

I stood on the edge and peered down. We were so high up that the ground could not be seen. My toes edged over the side to where I was only staying on the building by the arch of my feet. Exhilaration flooded my veins. The fact that a sudden burst of wind could topple me over and end my life was strangely liberating, and I edged off the building a bit more, testing my limits.

Soon I was hanging onto the building only by the heels of my shoes, arms up so I could balance. And, y'know, _not_ die. But then someone grabbed me by the arm roughly, yanking me off the side of the building and back onto completely solid ground.

"Okay, daredevil, enough of that," Riku grumbled, shaking his head. "We need to get moving."

My brows furrowed. "Excuse you, I was enjoying myself, thank you very much."

He groaned. "Well _I _would enjoy it if you would _listen_ for once and actually do as I suggest."

I scoffed, my arms crossed over my chest. "You're not my mother, y'know. I can take care of myself."

He looked me up and down, crossing his arms over his own chest before smiling. "I know you can. But still, we have to get moving."

"WOW! It's really windy out here!" Sora yelled, standing on the edge of the building. Grinning, he looked down into the dark city. "HELLLLOOOOOOOO!"

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh, so he can do it but I can't?" My eyes wandered over to Kairi, who was rubbing her arms fiercely from the wind chill and cold.

Riku groaned again. "Well, he's not hanging off the building like a maniac. He's just standing there and being _normal_ instead of _nearly killing himself_."

Scoffing, I waved him off. "Psh. What's the fun in _that_?"

Kairi rolled her eyes. "I almost forgot how annoying you two were together." Then her eyes wandered to the side and she gasped. "Guys! Look!"

All six of us turned our faces upwards (even Sora, who still hung off the edge of the story) to see Kingdom Hearts being bombarded by a singular white laser.

Brows furrowed, I put my hands in my jacket pockets, perplexed. "Wha—"

"It's the King and DiZ! I mean, Ansem the Wise," Riku exclaimed, his golden Xehanort eyes widening. "They must be higher up. We gotta go."

As the six of us began to run back to the portal (Sora lagging behind), a familiar _whooshing_ sound came from behind my group of five. A dark portal was forming, separating Sora from the rest of us.

Anxious for the fight that was sure to ensue, I formed a giant fireball in my hands. Then, out stepped a man in a black coat (obviously) with cropped white-blond hair and a rather impressive 5 o'clock shadow. A silver earring hung from his right ear and in his hand was a single black and blue playing card.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sora creeping silently up to the Organization member from behind. To distract the man, I laughed spitefully. "You're gonna threaten me with a _playing card_? Oooooh, how absolutely terrifying! Maybe you should try a bit harder."

Despite my comment, he smirked. Then he snapped and giant playing cards materialized out of nowhere, forming a giant circle around us. He then turned around, eyeing Sora's not-so-sneakiness.

Maybe I shouldn't have prodded him? Oops.

"You!" Sora exclaimed, his Keyblade appearing in his hand.

The cards were spinning faster and faster around us, making me dizzy. Donald fired thunder spells at them, but absolutely nothing happened to them. I sent my giant fireball at the cards in a vain attempt at destroying them, but it was all for naught.

I heard the blond man chuckle. "I'd rather we just skip the formalities," he mused in a classy sounding accent.

Then the cards spun faster and faster and faster, and soon all I could see was blackness.

The next thing I knew I was standing in the same spot I had been, wind rippling my hair. The man was gone and all that remained was Sora, who was bruised and exhausted-looking.

"You okay?" Kairi questioned him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He grinned, his Keyblade disappearing from his hand. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Just an Organization member I had to take out, no biggie."

Donald healed him, and he, Sora, Kairi and Goofy began to make their way to the portal. Riku began to move that way too, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him back, my eyebrows raised.

"Um..." I began, squinting my eyes. "What just happened?"

His brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Biting the inside of my cheek, I continued. "I just completely backed out! I missed the fight! Did that happen for everyone, or…"

He waved me off, smiling. "Luxord, that Organization member, he blocked us out of the fight." My eyebrows shot up and he continued. "It happens a lot, especially to people like us. The Organization cares more about Sora and his Keyblade than us. So, they block us out of the fight. You get used to it after a while."

We strolled to the portal, and I noticed that Donald (the last person to reach it) was just heading through. "So, every time there's a fight I'm most likely gonna black out again?"

Riku shrugged. "No, no, that's actually never happened before. Usually they just pull up a protective wall or something. I think it had something to do with the cards, but who cares. _Sora_ took him out, which means Luxord probably didn't have the power to do anything bad to us in the first place."

I laughed and pushed my braid behind me (it was slapping me in the face in time with the wind. Very annoying). "'Skip the formalities,'" I mocked under my breath, a smile on my face.

We had reached the portal and I stepped through to reenter the graveyard. Sora and Kairi stood next to each other, quietly chit chatting. Donald and Goofy stood awkwardly to the side (as usual), waiting for the action to happen.

Sora brightened at the sight of Riku and I emerging from the portal and Kairi put her hands on her hips, a small smile on her face. "So here's the thing;" she began, "the door to the next floor wouldn't budge. We already tried, and it just wouldn't open. And there's another portal in this room, so…"

I shrugged. "It's just logic that we'll have to go through there before being able to advance any further."

"And it's _also_ logic that there'll be another Organization member waiting in there," Riku noted from behind me.

Sora grinned, standing casually. "Then let's go ahead and finish this fight!" Cheerful as always.

We walked through the next (and last) portal and ended up in an empty silver room. At the front were large glass pane windows, the bright light of Kingdom Hearts shining in on us. Next to the windows stood a man with blue hair, his back turned to us.

He turned to face us, his expression completely stoic. "Only _you _could've made it this far… Roxas." He had a large X-marks-the-spot scar in the middle of his face and his gold eyes sunk deep into his skull. Suddenly I felt squeamish.

Sora clenched his fists and stomped. "That's _really_ getting old!"

"Yeah!" Donald pitched in, going to stand in front of Sora. Goofy moved with him and they spread their arms out, attempting to…block him from sight? Who knows? "He's no Roxas!"

The blue-haired man did not speak. Instead, he twisted his silver claymore in his hands, a small smirk appearing on his face. "Different name, same fate," he said carelessly before swinging his weapon and sending a strong blast of wind our way. I began to stumble, and soon I had arms wrapped around me, shielding me from the wind. I realized it was Riku, and Kairi was squeezed up right against me, also huddled in his arms for protection.

When the wind stopped I fought my way out of his grip, narrowing my eyes. "Why would you do that?!" I shouted. "I can take care of myself! You know I can!"

Drawing my hook blades, I ran forward to join the fight with Sora, Donald and Goofy (they had somehow held strong against the wind), but instead of freely running out into the room, I was knocked back by an unseen force, effectively falling onto my butt.

"Force field," Riku said. I could hear the smirk in his voice.

I groaned, pulling myself up from the ground. "You have got to be _kidding_ me!" I yelled, slamming my entire body against the force field in an attempt to break it. "Are they seriously gonna do this _every_ fight? Because I'm not digging it!"

Riku placed a hand on my shoulder. "Akira, chill out. Pull yourself together."

Again I groaned and stopped slamming my body into the force field, instead resorting to a rather pissed off looking frown. "Who the hell does that guy think he is, keeping me out of a fight?" I grumbled, arms across my chest.

"He's Saix," Kairi said simply, eyeing Sora's battle carefully.

My mind raced. I'd heard that name before. Somewhere.

Then it hit me; Axel had told me about him in the realm between this world and the alternate Twilight Town. Saix was the man who had kidnapped Kairi after she'd escaped from Axel.

My eyes flickered to her. She did not seem at all distressed by seeing the man who had taken her, so I concluded that nothing bad had happened. Thank god.

So instead of worrying, I turned to face the battle as well, still immensely annoyed that I was missing out on what looked like a _spectacular_ fight. Really, it did. This Saix guy was a real toughie, and overall I was immensely impressed by his performance. He would fly into the air, tossing around duplicates of his beautiful claymore, seeming calm and cool. Then all of a sudden he'd lose his mind and go in a complete berserk mode, twitching and swinging his claymore randomly. Truthfully, it was quite the show.

Unluckily for Saix, Sora had strategy on his side. He would run around the room the whole time, occasionally taking cheap shots at him while Donald fired off defensive magic and Goody pummeled the blue haired freak. Then once Saix lost it and threw around his claymore duplicates, Sora would steal them and attack Saix with his _own weapon_. It was the type of strategy I had always been famous for coming up with and I smiled. At least I'd taught this kid _something_ over the years.

Soon enough, the battle was over, leaving a rather exhausted and beat up looking Sora. The force field faded around us and Kairi ran to him, engulfing him in a hug. Disgusting.

When they pulled away, Sora did not seem happy to have won the battle. Instead, he looked immensely confused. "I don't get it," He began, crossing his arms and looking down. "Why does everyone keep calling me Roxas?"

Riku looked at him closely. "Because, Sora. Roxas is your Nobody."

Sora jumped, his eyes widening. "My… My Nobody?! That's impossible! I never turned into a Heartl—" He stopped, realization dawning on him. I had heard all about this part of the story too; the sacrifice he'd made for his dear friend Kairi, turning him into a mindless being of the dark.

Kairi backed away from him, standing next to me. "It was when you came to rescue me, remember?"

"Xemnas was the one who found Roxas," Riku explained, staring directly at Sora. "Since he was your Nobody, he could use the Keyblade. _That's_ why Xemnas brought him into the Organization—but Roxas betrayed them." He crossed his arms, examining Sora carefully to see if he understood fully. "After that, I fought him because I thought it would help wake you up. But… I lost. But the next time we met, I made sure I was the stronger one." A smile formed on his face. "Maybe I didn't need to fight him at all. I think he left the Organization… Because he really wanted to meet _you_."

Sora's eyes widened and he looked down, as if he had been longing for his Nobody for a long time. "Roxas… I wish I could meet him, too."

Then Riku stepped forward and stood in front of Sora, pointing a finger to Sora's chest. Right where his heart would be. The brunet boy held his heart and gave Riku a quizzical look, which his friend nodded at. Then Sora gripped his chest and smiled, excited to be whole.

Riku seemed to snap out of the sappy heart moment happening and quickly whipped around, all of a sudden seeming back to business. "Come on. Let's keep moving."

Sora followed him closely, a giant grin on his face. Donald and Goofy trailed behind and Kairi cast a glance to me, smiling. "Crazy week, yeah?"

I laughed. "Yeah," I verified, beginning to walk back to the portal we had come from.

"Yeah. Crazy week."

* * *

**At least Riku is in the story at this point. Took long enough, eh?**

**SERIOUS SHOUTOUT TO ****blissfulnightrain ****FOR BEING THE NICEST PERSON EVER AND ENCOURAGING ME. U DA BEST HONESTLY. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING.**


	10. Return and Reform

**DISCLAIMER: **These disclaimers are pointless. They are purely for my own amusement at this point. Still don't own Kingdom Hearts tho.

* * *

Kairi and I exited the portal last, the grave room seeming to have a sudden chill to it. Riku and Sora stood patiently and waited for us, arms crossed, but when we finally arrived Sora's face broke out into a grin.

"I bet we can get out of here now!" he exclaimed happily.

Riku nodded, his golden eyes grim. "Yes. But be careful; Xemnas'll be around here somewhere. I can feel it." Then to lighten the mood, he smiled broadly. "So make sure none of you hold me back, got it?"

I rolled my eyes. "Psh. If anything, you'll be the one holding _me_ back." I placed a hand on my hip, my voice going much deeper than normal to mock him."'Oh, no, Akira! You have to stay safe! Oh no, _battle_ is _dangerous_! You can't protect yourself!' Gimme a break. Odds are, _you'll_ be the one needing _my_ help."

One of his eyebrows shot up, a growing smirk on his face. "That's a bet?"

My eyes narrowed and I grinned evilly. Competition was where I always excelled. "Damn straight it's a bet."

"Um… Guys?" Sora's voice tuned in and I turned my head. He, Kairi, Donald and Goofy were all standing by the door to the next level. "Not meaning to interrupt or anything, but we've _really_ gotta hurry."

Then Riku's face went stoic. Back to business once again. "Right. Sorry. Let's get moving everyone!"

All six of us ran out of the room (god, was I grateful to be out of that extremely creepy graveyard) and up a ramp. We were outside again, and the moon seemed bigger than ever. The strange white laser still attacked it viciously, and soon, as we ascended the ramp, we were able to see who the culprits were; the King himself stood watching a man with long blonde hair and even longer red robes handle a dangerous looking machine. It shook and shimmied in his hands, steam pouring out of it, and I instantly decided that we were probably safer fighting Dusks than being near that thing.

"Your Majesty!" Sora yelled, speeding up to race in front of the rest of us.

We stopped behind them (Kairi, Donald and Goofy hanging back quite a bit) and I eyed the blond man carefully. He had gold eyes, just like many of the Organization members. But his were different. Instead of being filled with ferocity and emptiness, his held wisdom and humility.

"Sora!" the blond man shouted in a strange accent. "The rest is up to you. And Roxas… If you can hear me, which I doubt you can… I am sorry."

The machine sent out an electric shock from the sides and Mickey gasped. "Ansem!"

Ansem looked solemnly upon the mouse king, holding tight to the machine. "My heart is telling me what I must do! Please allow me to do as it says!"

My eyes widened as I finally realized the gravity of this situation. I took a step to run forward, but Riku pulled me back by the crook of the arm as if I were a rag doll. "Let go!"

"Akira, no," he said, his voice solemn. He looked me carefully in the eyes. "His heart's decided. We can't change that."

"Bu—"

"Enough has been said!" Ansem exclaimed, cutting me off, although I felt as though nothing had been said at all. "Riku," he noted, glancing to the young man in Xehanort's body, "you know what to do. And King Mickey, my dear friend… Please, forgive me."

Then the machine sparked completely, a bright white light emitting from it. Ansem was engulfed by the light, and every single one of us ran forward to save him. However, Riku stood in our way, holding us back so we could not get any closer.

A wind began to rush through my body and warmth dispersed through the air, as well as a light so blinding it sent me to my knees. I covered my eyes and crouched down into a ball, but I could not escape the harmful rays.

Eventually, the light subsided, though my retinas still stung uncontrollably. The wind stopped as well, and I forced myself onto my hands and knees, breathing raggedly.

I blinked out the dark spots and gazed around the room, counting heads. Ansem and his machine had completely disappeared, but everyone else seemed to be here, safe and sound and completely normal.

Wait.

"Riku?" I whispered, my eyes staying glued to him. He was face down, but I could still see the difference. His silver hair was lighter, his complexion fairer. I gasped, scooting myself over to him. "Riku!"

Sora trotted to my side, still rubbing the side of his head where he'd fallen. "Riku? Riku!"

The silver haired boy sat up and I gasped. Yes. It really _was_ true. "Riku, oh my gosh."

He groaned slightly as he sat up, but a small smile was on his face. He knew he was back. "Ansem and his wild contraptions."

I stood, grinning, and held out a hand for him to get himself on his feet. He took it, a gloved hand on his face as if he couldn't believe what had just occurred.

"Woooow!" Donald exclaimed, taking in Riku's reformed appearance. Kairi gasped and ran forward too, clasping her hands.

My eyes scanned over Riku and I frowned. "Um…" I flicked his black blind fold distastefully. "Are you uh… Are you gonna take that off?"

"Oh!" he exclaimed. I wondered how long he had been wearing that for him to forget it was even there, but then it was off. His electric blue eyes inched open little by little, blinking back the light they hadn't seen in so long. His throat hitched by what he hadn't seen in so long and he clenched his jaw.

"Why were you wearing that?" Sora inquired, his brows furrowed.

There was silence, but the King eventually supplied the answer. "His eyes couldn't lie."

Sora's own eyes widened and he placed his hands on his hips. "Oh yeah? And who were you trying to fool? Huh? Huuuuuh?"

Riku would not meet his gaze, but instead stared straight ahead, past all of us. "Myself." For the first time, it occurred to me that Riku was not the same proud, carefree boy I had known all my life. He was much more somber now, more realistic and responsible. And a hell of a lot more shame filled. In fact, I think I am probably the only person in our friend group who hadn't gone through any sort of transformation at all.

Sora bit his lip and sighed. "Riku, c'mon man, why'd you try to do so much on your own?" He motioned with big gestures to our group. "You've got friends who would help you. Like us!"

His eyes scanned the group and each person nodded in agreement, an encouraging grin on their face. I, on the other hand, handled it a bit differently. Instead, I crossed my arms and carelessly rolled my eyes, trying my hardest to show mock disdain. When Riku's gaze finally fell on mine, his brows furrowed, but then I accidentally let a small smile slip onto my lips and he returned it, very obviously getting the joke.

"You really wanna know why?" he asked, stepping forward. He tried his hardest to seem serious, but I could see the beginnings of a faint smile on his face. "Because I'm not a total sap like you."

I laughed, and Sora laughed as well, but soon we weren't laughing anymore. A high-pitched noise came from up above us, and was quite obviously coming from Kingdom Hearts. It was of a strange hue; purple and black on its edges, a deep yellow on its insides.

"What? What's this mean?" Sora questioned, looking to Riku for an answer.

He simply stared at the moon (I'm sure he had forgotten what a moon had looked like). "We have to defeat Xemnas and put an end to all of this. He's the Organizations last survivor."

"Right!"

Riku grabbed the center of his long black coat, gripped it tightly, and yanked it completely off his body in one swift, fluid motion. He was dressed in Island clothes, but that wasn't what surprised me. It was his _muscles_. I mean, yeah, he'd always been a pretty toned guy back on the Islands, but now he actually possessed full fledged _muscles_. Crazy.

"Let's go," he said, tossing his coat into the wind, never to be seen again.

And then, we were off.

We walked for a long time, weaving through various nooks and crannies and climbing endless stories of stairs. The castle looked huge on the outside, that was for sure; but the inside seemed even larger, and soon I began to wonder if there was actually even an end to it at all.

"Who in the hell," I breathed, jogging to keep up with the rest of the group, "decided to make a castle _this_ huge? Like, literally, what purpose would having a castle this big serve?"

The newly reformed Riku smirked. "They're compensating for their lack of skill in battle."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh? But I distinctly remember you saying that Roxas had _defeated_ you. Is that correct?" He rolled his eyes but I continued. "And by _Sora's_ Nobody nonetheless! How tragic for your ego that must've been."

"How tragic it will be for _you_ when I finally snap and beat you up for talking to me like that," he laughed, obviously not meaning a word of it.

A sly smile formed on my face. "You're not very used to defeat, huh? So getting beat by Roxas was sort of like… an _out of body_ experience." I kept my face completely stoic and he locked his gaze on mine, trying to seem angry.

He shook his head slowly. "You are not a sensitive person," he deadpanned before being overtaken by a fit of laughter. I began to laugh too, holding my stomach.

"Oh my god!" I exclaimed, wiping away a tear that streamed down my face. "That was the worst joke ever! Oh my god, I love myself right now."

"Geez!" He sputtered out, a giant grin on his face. "You're the most insufferable human being I've ever met!"

We laughed and laughed for a while, but soon I was the only one laughing. Loudly, I might add. It sounded very strange considering everything else around us (even our companions) were generally quiet, so I forced myself to stop and opened my eyes to glance at Riku.

His greenish-blue eyes stayed glued to my face and my brows furrowed. "What?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe I just forgot how you looked after not seeing you for so long, but… You look different."

I raised an eyebrow. "What? No, no. I look exactly the same, trust me."

Riku's eyes stayed on my face, scanning it, but then his face broke into a smile. "No, you _do _look different. Like, older."

I let out a short bark of a laugh. "Me? Have you _seen_ yourself?" I gestured to his muscles, his angular face and his extremely long hair. "It's like puberty came and kicked you into an entirely new dimension! You don't even look sixteen!"

He smiled more. "Actually no, I haven't seen myself. Blindfold, remember?"

"Oh. Oops."

"No, seriously," he continued, looking me up and down. "You look really different. I just can't place my finger on it."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever you say, Riku. Whatever you say."

We strolled in silence, hanging towards the back of the group. Kairi and Sora chatted loudly in the front, both of them giggling and blushing every two seconds. Truly, it was horrific to watch. Donald and Goody on the other hand were just as unassuming and underwhelming as usual; simply walking between all of us, quietly holding a conversation with the King.

A deep sigh came from beside me. "We're almost there."

My heart skipped a beat. "How do you know?"

Riku's eyes narrowed, his own Keyblade appearing in his hands (more Keyblades? Wow). "I can feel him."

My jaw clenched and I nodded. "Xemnas, right?"

His face was grim. "Right."

Then Sora turned around, his brows furrowed. "Do you guys feel that too?" He was a ways away from us, so his voice was a little loud.

My eyebrows shot up, but Riku nodded. "Yeah. That's him. He's close."

The King turned around too. "Everyone be careful. We don't know what to expect from a guy like that."

Things became quite grim and serious after that; we walked in silence for a while after that. We were no longer in spread out lines. Now, we walked close together in a type of huddle. It seemed safer to be together than far apart, especially with the enemy so close.

Eventually we reached a staircase, and upon taking it, we emerged onto the very top floor of the castle. The roof, to be exact. Kingdom Hearts was as big as ever, radiating purples and pinks that could mesmerize.

"Wow," I breathed, but Riku slapped a hand over my mouth. He placed a finger over his lips and I nodded. This place wasn't safe.

The entire group—all seven of us—walked up the small amount of steps to get to the very tip top of the roof. On it was a man with long silver hair and a black coat. He faced Kingdom Hearts, his arms raised to it as if in worship.

"Oh…" he breathed, his voice slow and quiet, "My Kingdom Hearts… Ruined. Now I'll have to start all over again." Then he turned to us slowly, his face stoic. My breath hitched at the sight of his piercing gold eyes. "Warriors of the Keyblade! Go forth, and bring me more hearts!" His voice was extremely slow and it made me very uneasy.

Mickey, Sora, and Riku stood next to each other, blocking the view of the rest of us. Their Keyblades appeared in their hands at the same time and they pointed them at Xemnas threateningly. "NO!" shouted Sora and Mickey.

Xemnas' piercing eyes searched the entire group. "Denizens of the light, tell me this: why do you hate the darkness so?"

"We don't hate it," The King stated, his blade lowering. "It's just kind of… scary. But the worlds are made of both light _and _darkness. You can't have one without the other because darkness is half of everything." His blade lowered completely, nearly scraping the ground. "Makes you wonder why we're scared of the dark in the first place."

Riku stiffened. "It's because of who's lurking inside of it," he said, his voice casual despite his defensive stance. At this, Mickey raised his weapon again, reconfirming why we were fighting in the first place.

"Then allow me another question," Xemnas continued in that same deliberate voice. My hands wandered to my hook blades out of fear of what would happen next. "You accept darkness, yet choose to live in the light." He raised his hands and made very grand gestures, his brows furrowing. Still, his face remained unchanged. "So why is it that you loathe us who teeter on the edge of nothing? We, who were turned away by both light and dark—never given a choice?"

Even from the back, I could see Riku was tense. "That's because you mess up our worlds," he stated calmly, completely juxtaposing his body language.

"That may be," Xemnas pondered, his hands drifting to the place where a heart should be. "But what choice did we have?"

"Oh please. Give it a rest!" Sora exclaimed, gripping his Keyblade tight in his hands. "You're a Nobody! You don't even exist! You don't feel sad at all!"

"Or anything else, for that matter," Riku added.

Xemnas laughed. Well, if you could call it that. It was more of a monotone, stair-stepping sound that came from the back of his throat. It was filled with absolutely nothing. No emotion or feeling or joy; nothing. "Very good," he mused. "You don't miss a thing." His hands began to move in grand gestures again and it made me uncomfortable. How could he be so dramatic but show no emotion whatsoever? "I cannot feel sorrow, no matter what misery befalls the worlds. No matter what you think, how you feel, or how you exist."

Then Xemnas threw his hands into the air and millions of purple lights flew into the air from the ground. They rushed all around me, making a very distinct _whooshing_ sound. Kairi clutched onto my arm out of fear, and I gripped my hook blades tight in my hands, unsure of whether I should be swinging at the lights or standing my ground.

Before I could even make up my mind, the lights stopped ascending into the sky and Xemnas and Sora had completely disappeared.

"Wha—" Kairi gasped, releasing my arm from her grip. "What just happened?"

"A-hyuck! Sora's gone!" Goofy yelped.

Riku ran forward, standing in the spot Xemnas had been. "Sora!"

"Sora! Where are you?" Kairi exclaimed, running to look over the edge of the building.

"Geez," I muttered to myself, rubbing my hands together. This kid sure liked to disappear a lot.

"Sora!" she screamed again, and this time she got an answer. Sora dropped down to the middle of the floor, face down and injured. He fell with a definite _thud_ and we all ran to his side to see if he was okay.

As it turns out, he was. He stood up and brushed dirt off himself, touching a stinging cut on his right forearm. "I'm okay. Where's Xemnas?"

My brows furrowed. "Sora, he disappeared with you. We don't know wha—"

I was cut off by the sound of howling wind. Floating off the edge of the building was Xemnas, directly in front of Kingdom Hearts. It glowed furiously, a wild storm raging around it. I blinked back the tears that were stinging my eyes from the wind.

"Oh, Kingdom Hearts!" he said. His voice was still that same quiet tone, but somehow we could hear him above the wind. "We must begin anew! I will give to you as many hearts as it takes! Mark my words: you can no longer be complete without me than I without you!" He lifted his arms, his voice rising for the first time in chant. "Heed me Kingdom Hearts! Lend me your power so that we may be complete! The power to erase the fools that hinder us!"

"Xemnas, no!" The King yelled, his Keyblade materializing in his hands.

"Hearts quivering with hatred…"

"Xemnas! Don't!" Sora yelled, running forward to the barrier of the roof.

"Hearts burning with rage…"

Riku drew his blade. "You'll never win," he murmured underneath his breath.

"Hearts scarred by envy… Yes, hearts are the source of all power!"

A blinding light shone from Kingdom Hearts, causing everyone to grunt in pain and shield their eyes with their arms. It lasted for a while, five seconds maybe, and then it disappeared. Blinking back the dark spots in my eyes, I turned my hook blades in my hand, prepared for a fight.

However, when I regained my sight, I cocked my head. There seemed to not be a fight. Instead, there was a door. A big, tall, white door, just as menacing as Kingdom Hearts itself.

"Xemnas! You can't hide from us!" Sora yelled, genuine anger at the edge of his voice.

The King wandered in front of the door. "The worlds gave us this door. They want us to be the guardians of their destiny."

Riku stood next to him. "Once we go through, there's no coming back. It's victory… or oblivion. There's no guarantee we'll defeat him."

A smile crept to my face and I took my place next to Riku, turning my hook blades in my hands. "Those are my favorite type of odds, and that's my favorite kind of bet. Let's do this."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Riku couldn't help the tiny smirk that formed on his face. "I couldn't agree more."

"Let's go," Sora said, approaching the door tentatively. Mickey and Riku followed him and they stood in a circle, raising their Keyblades high into the air. Streams of light emitted from each of them, shooting straight into the dull, dark night. The sound of a door unlocking filled the land. It was done.

"Xemnas," Sora shouted, more to himself than to any of us, "we're coming for you!"

And then he took off through the door, the rest of us trailing on his heels.

All of seven of us walked into the new realm—united as a group, Sora, Riku and I taking the lead. It was riddled with buildings, both collapsed and standing. And at the very far side of these building was Xemnas himself, high, high, high up, almost too far for us to see.

"So… it seems your hearts have led you to obliteration," he mused, his voice slow and deliberate. Seriously, how could he be talking so quietly and still be audible? It was creepy. "Perhaps it doesn't pay to be too loyal to ones heart. I will have to be sure to remember that."

Then he flicked his hand dramatically, sending an entire building to collapse in front of us. "Run!" Mickey yelped, grabbing Kairi's hand and taking off. The rest of us had the same idea, too; we took off after them to save ourselves from being completely squashed.

The King dragged Kairi outside the door to the worlds, and before I could yell to them how unwise that was, the doors shut behind them.

"No!" I yelled, taking the handles in my palms and jerking at them with all my might. "No!"

"Akira!" Riku gripped me by the crook of my arm and made me stop pulling.

I gave him a distasteful look. "_Stop_ doing that!"

"We have to go!" he exclaimed, dragging me by the arm to take off down the alley of fallen buildings. Sora, Donald and Goofy had already taken off and were currently slashing through the buildings, weaving around them and dodging fallen debris.

"What's gonna happen to them?" I yelled to Riku, jerking myself out of his grip so I could run in pace with him.

We both sped up, quickly gaining on Sora. "Don't worry about them!" Riku yelled back, jumping out of the way of broken glass falling from above us. "You should be worrying about yourself!"

Biting the inside of my cheek, I dodge rolled out of the way of a giant doorframe floating through the sky. "Psh," I scoffed as I regained my pace. "I can handle myself just fine, thank you very much."

Riku sent me a smile for a fleeting second before turning his eyes back to the objective before us. "I know you can."

Finally we caught up with Sora, who was already cut up from all the falling glass. "Nice of you to show up," he joked cheerily. "Now c'mon, there's a lift!"

There in fact, _was_ a lift. The five of us boarded it and came face to face with what appeared to be armor on a throne. "Xemnas!" Sora yelled, brandishing his Keyblade. He charged the man in armor, but Xemnas simply sent a giant force field his way, knocking him back.

I nodded to Riku and he nodded back, showing he got the message. Then, we charged at the same time on both flanks, attacking mercilessly. That lasted for a only a few seconds before Xemnas slashed at us with a giant lance, sending me reeling back to the other side of the battlefield.

My entire body slammed into what felt like another force field, and rolling over I realized that The King and Kairi had not been trapped on the other side of the door at all, but instead were stuck outside of the fight. I vaguely wondered how that had happened but then shrugged it off. Xemnas was a powerful guy; he could've been able to bring them back. Also, there were more important matters at hand.

Sora had finally regained his feet and was pummeling Xemnas whenever he could, only to be sent reeling backwards like I just had. Riku fought in vain, attacking with brutal force only to be dealt a blow twice as hard. Goofy simply rammed his shield into the armor, attempting to dodge attacks coming his way (unsuccessfully, might I add). Then there was Donald, who was too busy healing everyone's injuries to contribute to the actual battle.

My mind reeled as I pulled myself back to my feet, curing myself with the wave of a hand. We desperately needed a strategy—fast.

Then it hit me. "Sora!" I yelled.

He jumped back from the fight, healing himself. "Huh?"

My eyes wandered to Goofy, who pummeled hopelessly into the armor. "I've noticed something! A weakness!"

"What is it?"

I watched as Xemnas shot lasers at Riku, sending him sprawling onto his back. Still, the lasers only reached a small distance around his throne. I smiled. "He hardly has any long-range attacks!"

Sora's eyes widened. "Got it!"

"Strategy: attack from a distance whenever possible, and we'll keep Donald on defensive magic when we're forced into close quarters." I nodded my head. "Good?"

He threw his Keyblade in an arc and it slammed into the armor before circling back to him. "Perfect!"

I hurried over to Riku, who was emitting a dark beam from his palms. He sent it to Xemnas, who very obviously took much damage from it. I opened my mouth to tell him the plan but he just grinned. "Already figured it out," he stated, sending another dark aura to Xemnas. "You go attack short-range. I'll cover you."

Half of me was shocked that Riku believed in me enough to tell me to do that. The other half of me was absolutely ecstatic to get some good battle action. "Right!"

I charged Xemnas, dragging my hook blades along the metallic tile on the ground. The sound was disorienting and he jerked around, giving me enough time to slam into his helmet multiple times. He raised his hand grandiosely to send his many lances my way (another weakness; Xemnas was so dramatic, it was obvious when he would attack), but I was too fast; I back flipped to flank him on the other side, attacking with all my might.

After a while, Xemnas finally got to me with his fiery pink lasers. They cut into the flesh of my skin, disintegrating entire portions of pinky flesh. The skin looked charred and black and it bled grotesquely, but I shrugged it off. Healing could come later.

I dodge rolled out of the range of his attacks to survey the battle field. Sora threw around his Keyblade meticulously, very careful to hit Xemnas in all the right places; Donald sent offensive magic to Xemnas (which he blocked, for the most part); Goofy was KO'd, passed out on the edge of the battlefield; and then there was Riku, charging Xemnas for a close-ranged attack.

Smiling, I charged right along with him, attacking Xemnas from the opposite direction. We slammed into him at the same time, causing the armor to clang. The wind lances were summoned, but this time I was unable to avoid them. They cut at my face and my exposed legs, tearing gashes into my body. The coppery taste of blood graced my tongue—I suppose I had a split lip or something, but that was of no concern at the moment. _Surviving_ was my main priority.

"You okay?" Sora yelled to me, his Keyblade gliding back into his hand.

I wiped my nose, blood trailing onto my knuckles. It throbbed and felt broken. "I'm swell!" I yelled back, pulling myself up from the ground to resume the fight.

I charged Xemnas again, successfully dodging the lasers that threatened me, and attacked him with every ounce of strength I had. He brought his sword up and over his head, slashing it at me. I tried to jump over it but it caught me in my mid-back, throwing me across the room and causing me to cry out in pain. The sword had been riddled with electricity and I twitched hopelessly, waves of pain radiating through me. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

My skin crackled with electricity, but I forced myself up, absorbing the electricity into my own magic and sending it to Xemnas. A powerful thunderstorm hung over him, dealing serious damage and I grinned. I most definitely could take care of myself.

"You okay?" Riku yelled to me, jumping out of the range of attack.

I rolled my eyes. "Everyone needs to stop asking that!" I gripped my left wrist that had been injured back in Twilight Town (remember that? Seems like an eternity ago). It had never given me trouble before, but now it throbbed uncontrollably. I wondered if I had sprained it again, and shook my head. More important things. "You and Sora go attack close-range! I'll cover you!"

"You're sure?" He knew about my love of battle, but I nodded still. At this moment, I was not in the state to be fighting too close.

Then he took off, pummeling Xemnas with his Keyblade.

I fired out my strongest offensive magics; fire balls, blizzard storms, thunder cracks, whirlwinds, you name it. Sora and Riku attacked on the flanks, getting absolutely slaughtered by lasers and lances, but fighting nonetheless. By this time, Donald was nearly knocked out. He hung onto consciousness barely, his magic expended. Goofy had finally just regained his senses and was rejoining the battle, groggy and injured.

We fought like that for a long time, barely hanging onto the thread of being alive. But soon, Sora snapped.

"Enough!" he shouted, jumping high into the air, only to send his Keyblade deep into the chest armor of Xemnas. It went straight through and stayed like that, and in that instant all went silent.

A bright flash emitted from nowhere. Suddenly, the throne was gone, the armor was gone, and the force field holding the King and Kairi was gone. All that remained was our group and a kneeling Xemnas, clutching his chest where his heart would be.

He breathed heavily, but his face was as stoic as ever. It was unnerving. "I need… more rage… I need… more hearts…" his voice was a ragged whisper that sent chills up my spine.

A battered and beaten Sora lowered his blood-covered weapon. His nose looked seriously broken. "Xemnas. There's more to a heart than just anger or hate. It's full of all kinds of feelings." His voice was sad, almost sympathetic. "Don't you remember?"

Small black tendrils began to float around the Nobodies body and he clutched his chest harder, meeting Sora's gaze perfectly. His gold eyes were as piercing as ever, even in the face of death.

"Unfortunately," he began, his voice delicate, "I don't."

And then he was gone, disintegrated into nothing.

Everything was silent as we all relaxed our weapons. The adrenaline was gone now, and the pain from my injuries was really beginning to kick in. I looked myself over. I had a literal chunk of skin missing from my right arm. The tissue and part of the muscle was visible. How had this not affected me prior?

The King cleared his throat, the first to speak. "Gosh. You all did great! That sure was a tough battle."

Kairi gripped Sora in a hug, careful not to press herself against his many injuries. His nose bled on her shoulder, but she did not seem to care and I stuck my tongue out at them. I've said it once and I'll say it again; love is disgusting.

My eyes scanned the room. Riku had wandered off and stood alone by the edge of the battle field, staring into the dark abyss. Raising my eyebrows I walked (or limped to my best ability) over to him. "Riku, what are you doing?"

He turned to face me. He did not seem at all happy to have won the battle. Instead he looked worried. I raised my eyebrows even higher. "What's wrong?"

I took in his appearance. Split lip in two places (blood streamed down his jawline all vampire-like. Quite gross), a giant gash on his cheek that would leave a scar if not healed soon, a black eye, and what seemed to be a dislocated jaw. He seemed unbothered by it and simply shrugged, looking sad. "I had given in to the darkness."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I know, big deal. We don't think of you any differently. You know that."

It was as if he hadn't even heard me. "How am I supposed to go back home and face everyone?"

"Like this," Sora said, squishing his face together in a silly fashion. I hadn't even noticed he was at my side.

Riku's solemn face broke into a grin and he laughed lightheartedly, seeming to genuinely feel better. I smiled. Sora was literally the best at cheering a person up and I could not be more grateful for him than at this moment, considering how piss poor I am at it.

The feeling was nice but only lasted for so long, for there was soon a giant _bang_ that came from somewhere in the dimension. I clenched my jaw. "This place is gonna fall apart."

The King, Kairi, and everyone else ran to our side. "We better hurry!"

Riku nodded. "I'll open up a portal," he said confidently, waving a hand. Nothing happened and he tried again. Again, the atmosphere remained unchanged and he looked at his hand in shock.

Mickey smiled. "You don't belong in the dark realm anymore, Riku."

Donald looked exasperated. "How are we going to get out of here, Your Majesty?"

Kairi and Sora shifted and their eyes were glued to something far off. Riku and I looked too, and I smiled. There was a tiny girl in a white dress, her hair as mop-like as ever.

Namine.

I lent her a grin and she sent a timid wave my way before throwing her other hand up, summoning a dark portal.

The King was startled by the sound of the darkness opening and ran to the portal. Donald followed close behind. "Who did this?" Donald quacked.

"Welp, I'm not sure," Mickey mused, "but we'd better hurry and get through!"

I cocked my head. First of all, how had they not seen her? She was standing right in front of them! Second, why would they go through a mysterious portal if they didn't know who summoned it in the first place? That seemed rather unwise, and suddenly I knew why the King went missing so often.

Riku noticed my confusion and smiled. "They don't see her because they've never met her before," he whispered, careful that they wouldn't hear him.

Before I could respond, Goofy was bounding towards the portal loudly. "Wait for me!"

The King followed close behind and Donald only stopped long enough to yell "Come on!" at us. It felt nice to know something they didn't, considering how behind I had been on everything else.

Kairi and Sora approached Namine tentatively. They spoke quietly for a while, and then something _very_ unexpected happened: the shape of a blond boy stepped out from Sora's body to speak to Namine.

I gasped. "Wha—"

"Roxas," Riku said, still looking at them. He smiled. "Sora's Nobody."

My mind reeled and a sly grin formed on my face. "Oh, Roxas, right. The guy who _defeated_ you."

He rolled his eyes. "You're never gonna let that go, are you?"

"Never," I said. "There's just so much comedic gold with it. How could I resist?"

Riku did not meet my gaze. Instead, he watched the four carefully, a certain type of joy in his eyes. "That's fine," he said finally. "I don't mind."

I watched him carefully. He was not the same person he was before. Still, he hadn't changed in a _bad_ way. He was just… different. Grown up. "Well, that's no fun for me," I joked quietly. Seems I'm the only person who _hadn't_ grown up.

Finally I stopped looking at Riku and focused on the scene at hand. Kairi and Namine held hands, and soon Namine was disintegrated. My eyes widened. Before I could even ask, Riku was answering.

"Namine is Kairi's Nobody," he said, gaze still on the three that remained. "It's time for the Nobodies to return to their Somebodies."

My own gaze drifted to the three who remained. Roxas stepped forward, grinning. "Look sharp!" he instructed and Sora straightened self consciously. I grinned and vaguely wished the he wasn't a Nobody. He seemed like a cool guy.

But then he disintegrated too, joining back with Sora. I glanced to Riku. "Time to get out of here?"

"Time to get out of here," he confirmed, walking over to Sora and Kairi. I followed closely, very interested in what had just happened.

Sora still seemed rather shell shocked and Riku clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry. You're all still you."

Kairi grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to the portal. "Hey, come on! Let's go home."

I shook her off. "Ugh, no! Let go. I don't want to go home. I _just_ got out of that rotten place! You really expect me to go back?"

She pretended to think for a second. "Well, yeah," she said in a _duh_ tone.

"Don't worry," Sora said from behind us. He had his hands behind his head, grinning. "We'll go on another adventure soon, yeah? And this time, you can go on _all_ of it! Not just the last parts."

Still, I grimaced. "Fine."

"Let's go, guys," Kairi muttered cheerily. I walked through the portal first, pouting. Kairi followed behind, probably eyeing me to see if I'd make a break for it so the adventure wouldn't stop.

Things got a little weird after that, though.

"Sora! Riku!" Kairi yelled.

I whipped around only to see that the portal had vanished. Sora and Riku were nowhere to be found.

Instead of being distressed, I groaned. "Oh my god, you have to be _kidding_ me!"

She turned to face me, kicking sand up with her shoes (we had walked through the portal only to end up at our childhood isle. I was disgusted by it). "What?"

I made vague hand motions, obviously annoyed. "Those stupid jerks get to go on _another_ adventure without us! This is ridiculous. We probably didn't even properly kill Xemnas and they have to fight him again or something. God, I'm so pissed."

Her eyes were alight. "_That's_ what you're concerned about?!"

I pretended as if I hadn't heard her. "Dammit, I _always_ miss the good battles! Those assholes think they can just go on all these adventures _without_ me? How selfish."

"Akira!" Kairi screamed, genuinely angry. "Don't be so selfish and start worrying about our friends!"

"What's goin' on here, girls?" The King approached us, a smile on his face.

"Those stupid jerks are leaving us out of an amazing battle! Truly an outrage." I shook my head in annoyance, flicking my hand to heal myself properly. I had never healed myself after the fight, and now seemed as good a time as any.

"The portal closed on Riku and Sora!" Kairi was the highest form of exasperated.

The King jumped. "Oh, gosh! That's no good! Say, why do you think it'd do that?"

I shrugged, still fuming. "We probably didn't take out Xemnas properly. _God,_ haven't they had _enough_ fun without having to steal it from the rest of us? They couldn't leave a good battle for someone else?"

Mickey raised his eyebrows. "Akira, you're not at all worried about them?"

Waving him off, I frowned. "No, no, why should I be? They'll be fine, we all know it." Then I rolled my eyes out of annoyance. "However, they _won't_ be fine when they get back here. Who gave them the right to have all the really cool adventures?"

The King eyed me for a bit, seemingly confused. Truth be told, I was the teeniest bit concerned. This was just a way for me to cope.

He sighed. "You're right, Akira. They'll be fine."

Kairi's anger seemed to have subsided. "How will they get back though? How will they find their way back?"

Mickey clenched his jaw, his brow furrowing. "I'm pretty sure they'll be able to return once Xemnas has been defeated. There'll probably be a portal or something of the like."

"How long do you think it will take?"

He thought for a second. "A couple hours, maybe. But really, I can't be sure."

I rolled my eyes, plopping down onto the sand. "Whatever. I guess we'll just have to have a jolly time waiting on those jerks, yeah?"

Kairi looked at me and shook her head. "I guess you're right. But you _could_ pretend to be worried, you know."

I removed my jacket which was riddled with holes from the battle. Looks like I need a new wardrobe. "I'm worried that I'll never get off these damn islands again, if that's what you mean." Despite my words, my mind swam. Sora and Riku were awfully injured earlier. Hopefully they had the sense to heal themselves, and hopefully they were smart enough to come up with a good strategy. "They're big boys. They can take care of themselves."

She rolled her eyes, walking away from me. "You're unbelievable."

Her sneakers stopped on the edge of the water and she crossed her arms behind her back. It reminded me of how she had been waiting for Sora the first time. Now, she was waiting again. I wondered vaguely if Kairi would spend her whole life waiting for things to happen and I shook my head sadly, vowing to never let myself end up like that. Like her.

A hand appeared on my shoulder and I looked up. Mickey was standing over me, a kind smile on his face. "They'll be fine… and you'll be fine too." It was as if he read my mind.

My eyes searched his, and I really wanted to protest. Really, I did. But he seemed to understand, _and _he was the King. I really didn't want to get yelled at by Donald for disrespecting His Royalty. So instead of saying something snarky, I gave him the teeniest of smiles.

"I hope you're right."

The sand was gritty and wet and familiar against my legs. It made me scrunch my nose as I drew in the sand with a stick. God, I hoped I'd never have to feel this sand again.

Sighing, I continued my little doodle. I had drawn Kingdom Hearts, large and shining. The castle was positioned in the background, looming over a dark city. The drawing may not have been detailed or well done, but it was identifiable. Plus, it seemed to be the only way to pass the time.

I wriggled around, trying to get comfortable. We had been waiting on the island for two hours already. Kairi still stood on the banks of the ocean, staying silent the whole time. The King, Donald, and Goofy entertained themselves by the waterfall, chatting and playing in the water.

My jaw ticked. "Hey Goofy, you see that weird brown plant by the banks of the waterfall? That tovocca right there. And that thick wax-type leaf on the other side?" He nodded and I continued. "Can you pass me some of both?"

Goofy complied, bringing me the desired plants, and I thanked him with a smile. I crushed the brown tovocca leaves into a powder and rolled them into the waxy leaf carefully. Then I put the ends of it between my teeth, ready to summon some fire.

Then Kairi spoke for the first time in hours. "You're really gonna start smoking again?" Her back still faced me, her eyes glued to the horizon.

I rolled my eyes, the tovocca roll hanging to my teeth. "No. I quit a long time ago. I just need something to pass the time."

She turned to face me, a knowing smile on her face. "You better not, worry wart. It's a disgusting habit."

Summoning a small lick of flames on the tip of my finger, I scoffed. "I'm not worried," I insisted harshly, lighting the roll and inhaling the smoke. Kairi spun back around to face the horizon and I blew smoke in her direction, hoping to irritate her to the smallest degree.

She was right, though. I'd stopped this habit long, long ago. Now I only seemed to do it when I was angry, upset or anxious.

Pushing the thoughts out of my head, I inhaled a bit more, holding it deep in my lungs. This probably wouldn't be the best thing for my stamina in battle but I shrugged it off. One time wouldn't kill me.

The sun was beginning to get low and sunset was soon approaching. I grit my teeth at the thought of having to sleep through another Island moon and exhaled smoke, forming it into the shape of a mushroom with my lips. Well, if you could call it a mushroom. But I hadn't smoked in a long time; I was a bit out of practice.

An hour had passed and the tovocca roll was half gone when Kairi finally spoke again.

"Akira! Look!"

I glanced up to her. She was pointing to two bright lights in the sky, spiraling down to the ocean. A teeny smile curled at my lips and I gripped the tovocca between my fingers.

They were back.

I pulled myself up from the ground and brushed off the sand as the lights spiraled down, finally finding a home in the clear blue water of the sea. Nothing happened for a couple seconds, but soon two heads popped out of the water, gasping for air.

"Sora! Riku!" Kairi yelled, waving with both hands to get their attention.

There was a shift in the ocean, and soon they were sprinting for the shore, stumbling over themselves in the waves. I chuckled to myself. How in the hell had these blubbering idiots saved worlds?

Kairi looked as though she was ready to leap out into the ocean, but Donald, Goofy and the King beat her to it, pouncing on Sora and throwing him to the ground as soon as he was close enough to access. Mickey jumped into Riku's arms playfully and they laughed together. Meanwhile, I hung back a bit, the tovocca hanging between my fingers carelessly.

"W—We're back!" Sora stammered, a giant grin on his face.

Kairi held out her hand to help him up. "You're home."

My eyes scanned the scene and I couldn't help the small smile that crept to my face. Through my scanning, my gaze met Riku's and he approached me, absolutely soaking wet.

He grinned. "Tovocca, huh?" His eyes were glued to my roll. "Thought you'd quit doing that. It's a bad habit, y'know."

Grimacing, I tossed it to the ground and snuffed out the spark with the heel of my shoe. "You know what a _real _bad habit is?" I began, my eyes narrowing. "Going off and having amazing battles and doing dangerous things without me, you stupid idiot!"

I jabbed him in the chest with my finger and he sighed. "C'mon, Akira, you know we would've brought you along if we—"

He was cut off by my hug, forceful and hard. "Don't freak us out again," I said into his neck, an edge to my voice. "I didn't know if you'd come back. You made me resort to tovocca. Feel bad."

Riku hugged me back, making the front of my overall-shorts wet. His breath was cool on my ear. "It won't happen again."

I smiled and pulled back from him, raising my eyebrows. "Liar."

He seemed to think for a moment then smiled back. "Yeah, well." He shrugged as if he was accepting the fact. "Next time I'll try to make sure you're included on the adventure."

I let out a satisfied sigh. "Good. Because this waiting around shit ain't for me."

Riku laughed lightheartedly. "Maybe you shouldn't go on any adventures, actually. They change you, and I just couldn't _bear_ it if you became less insufferable."

I rolled my eyes. "With your luck, my capacity to annoy and my sarcasm will be the only traits that remain. Now, let's move on, yeah? Tell me: what the hell happened to you two?"

* * *

**wOW that chapter was wayyy too long. someone teach me how to shut up and stop rambling, thanks.**

***insinuates that Akira used to smoke cigarettes but doesn't know if cigarettes exist in the KH universe so I play it off as though I invented this new hip word and concept when really I changed like 3 letters of the original thing i had wanted to talk about***

**excited to keep on writin' so I can get to ~the good stuff~. Which is just more snarky comments and bad jokes, probably. That's it, that's my writing strategy, I can hang up this old gig now.**

**blissfulnightrain REMAINS THE APPLE OF MY EYE. FORREAL. SHOUTOUT TO MY GIRL.**


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